The Synthesis Of Water-soluble Fullerene Derivatives

Fullerene is only composed of carbon with a structure of ellipsoid, sphere or tube.C60is spherical structure which reachs a steady state as the smallest molecule. There isno special note, the fullerene is C60in this paper. The unique structure of fullerenedetermines its unique physical and chemical properties. The study found that fullerenecould be applied in physics, material science, chemistry, biomedical and many otherfields. In the biomedical field, the environment of the organism is mostly water,fullerene is a polar molecule, its poor solubility in water limits its application.Therefore improving the solubility of fullerene is of important theoretical and practicalsignificance.Brominated fullerene was obtained by the reaction of fullerene and bromine inthis paper. FT-IR and TG were used to prove the formula is C60Br24. A series ofwater-soluble fullerene derivatives were designed and synthesized based on C60Br24.Fullerol C60(OH)24was obtained by the reaction of C60Br24and NaOH. The productwas purified by dialysis, which giving pure C60(OH)24. FT-IR, NMR and TG were usedto characterize the structure of product.The ethoxy(methoxy) fullerol were prepared from brominated fullerene,ethanol(methanol) and sodium. Firstly C60Br24was dispersed well inethanol(methanol), then adding sodium hydroxide solution to the reaction mixture.Hydrochloric acid was used to adjuste the pH of solution, salts were precipitated. Thesolid was obtained by centrifugation and evaporation. Acetone, tetrahydrofuran andbenzene were used to extracte the product. Finally the pure ethoxy(methoxy) fullerolwere obtained by silica gel column chromatography. The product exhibitedamphiphilic. FT-IR and NMR were used to characterize the structure of product. Fullerene mercapto derivative C60(SH)xwas designed and synthesized by reactionof C60Br24and thiourea(CN2H4S), sodium hydrosulfide(NaSH), respectively. Theisothiourca salt was obtained by reflux reaction of C60Br24and thiourea solution in theformer method, further hydrolysis to give the desired product. The experimental resultshowed that reaction produced no fullerene mercapto derivative, C60and orthorhombicsulfur S8as the main products were generated.In the reaction of C60Br24and NaSH, one method was without NaOH, another waswith NaOH to obtain the desired product considering the effect of sodium hydroxide tothe hydrogen atom of sodium hydrosulfide. The results of NMR, FTIR, etc.preliminarily proved that C60(SH)xcould be synthesized from both methods. Theproduct need to be further purified and characterized.