Synthesis and X-ray structure of dumb-bell-shaped C120

Guan-Wu Wang, Koichi Komatsu (), Yasujiro Murata and Motoo Shiro
Additional contact information
Guan-Wu Wang: *Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University
Koichi Komatsu: *Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University
Yasujiro Murata: *Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University
Motoo Shiro: †Rigaku Corporation, 3-9-12 Matsubara-cho

Nature, 1997, vol. 387, issue 6633, 583-586

Abstract: Abstract The discovery and large-scale synthesis of fullerenes have aroused interdisciplinary interest in these closed-cage molecules1,2,3,4,5,6. C60 can be photopolymerized into a form in which the cages are thought to be linked by cyclic C4 units in a [2 + 2] cycloaddition7, provoking theoretical studies of the C60 dimer8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15, the smallest subunit of such a polymer. The C60 dimers C120O (refs 16, 17), C121H2( ref. 17) and C120O2(ref. 18) have been reported, in which the two C60molecules are linked by, respectively, a furan group, a cyclopentane ring and a cyclobutane ring plus two oxygen bridges; but the simplest dimer, C120linked by a cyclobutane ring alone, has not so far been observed. We now report that this dumb-bell-shaped molecule can be synthesized by a solid-state mechanochemical reaction of C60 with potassium cyanide. Our X-ray structural analysis shows that the C4 ring connecting the cages is square rather than rectangular—the latter is predicted theoretically8,9,13,14,15. The dimer dissociates cleanly into two C60 molecules on heating or one-electron reduction, but in the gas phase during mass-spectrometric measurements it undergoes successive loss of C2 units, shrinking to even-numbered fullerenes such as C118 and C116 in a sequence similar to that seen for other large fullerenes19,20.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/42439 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:387:y:1997:i:6633:d:10.1038_42439

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/42439

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().