Atoms and Molecules Within Fullerenes

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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.