Atoms and Molecules Within Fullerenes

在化学系有机动力学项目的支持下，耶鲁大学的马丁·桑德斯教授和R·詹姆斯·克罗斯教授将继续他们在富勒烯化学方面非常成功的研究。PI们正在提议新的实验，涉及到与其他小组的合作，这些小组为这项工作带来了特殊的专业知识。建议使用氦核磁共振更好地了解富勒烯的性质和产物。将氦加入富勒烯中并将其用作起始材料使其可以用作工具，因为氦核磁共振为起始材料和每一种不同的可溶产品产生一个尖锐的峰。因此，PI将研究更高的富勒烯化学、涉及富勒烯的Diels-Alder反应、富勒烯的高温重排以及其他惰性气体在富勒烯中的结合。这项详细的研究将增进我们对这些独特材料的了解，并帮助社区中致力于更多应用问题的研究人员。有机和高分子化学计划支持耶鲁大学的Martin Saunders和R.James Cross教授，他们的研究努力已经使药物化学和天文学等广泛领域受益。研究人员在陨石中发现了充满氦的富勒烯，这表明这些分子形成于氦更丰富的地外环境。这一结果之所以有可能，是因为桑德斯和克罗斯之前对面体内氦化合物的研究，这对天体化学具有重大意义，因为科学家们试图确定生命的有机组成部分起源于哪里。此外，将富勒烯衍生物用于材料或医药用途的化学家已经并将继续使用PIs开发的方法来确定其合成反应的产物。氦核磁共振仍然是测量给定样品中存在多少富勒烯化合物的最灵敏的方法。如果计划中的氦质子NOE实验成功，合成富勒烯化学家将拥有更精确的分析工具。

With the support of the Organic Dynamics Program in the Chemistry Division, Professors Martin Saunders and R. James Cross of Yale University will continue their highly successful studies in fullerene chemistry. The PIs' are proposing new experiments that involve collaborations with other groups that bring particular expertise to the work. Work is proposed to better understand the properties and products of fullerenes using Helium NMR. Incorporating Helium into fullerenes and using this as the starting material allows it to be used as a tool, since Helium NMR yields a single sharp peak for the starting material and every different soluble product. Thus the PIs will study higher fullerene chemistry, Diels-Alder reactions involving fullerenes, high temperature rearrangements of fullerenes, and the incorporation of other noble gases into fullerenes. This detailed study will enhance our understanding of these unique materials and assist researchers in the community who are working on more applied problems.The Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program supports Professors Martin Saunders and R. James Cross of Yale University whose research effort has already benefited areas as wide ranging as medicinal chemistry and astronomy. Researchers have found helium-filled fullerenes in meteorites, suggesting that these molecules formed in an extraterrestrial environment where helium is more plentiful. This result, only possible because of Saunders and Cross's previous investigations into endohedral helium compounds, has significant implications for astrochemistry, as scientists try to determine where the organic building blocks of life originated. In addition, chemists using fullerene derivatives for materials or medicinal applications have used and will continue to use the methods developed by the PIs to determine the products of their synthetic reactions. Helium NMR remains the most sensitive measure of how many fullerene compounds are present in a given sample. If the planned He-proton NOE experiments are successful, synthetic fullerene chemists will have even more precise analytic tools at their disposal.