Enhanced Formation of Higher Fullerenes and Fullertubes: Aluminum Carbide Co-Vaporization with Graphite

The synergistic formation of new forms of carbon by covaporization of graphite and certain transition metal catalysts is well documented. Over 30 years ago, it was reported that covaporization of carbon and cobalt leads to enhanced formation of singIe-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with diameters of ∼1.2 nm. We now report that covaporization of graphite and Al4C3 in a Krätschmer fullerene generator provides 1–2 orders of magnitude increase in the corresponding extract yields of higher spherical and elliptical fullerenes covering the range of C100 to C240. In addition, covaporization of graphite and Al4C3 also lead to significant increases in “fullertubes”. These molecules have tubular central section motifs equivalent to single walled carbon nanotubes, SWCNTs. These fullertubes exist as two prominent series, C60 + 10n: C90, C100, C120, C130, C150, and C180 and a series C60+18n: C114, C132, C150, C168, C186, and C204. As recently established, we employ an aminopropanol chemical reactivity protocol to establish the higher yields for these fullertubes. The higher fullerenes and fullertubes represent new carbon allotropes. Co-vaporization process provides an avenue for greater abundance of these large allotropic carbon molecules for various applications.