Fullerenes: Synthesis and Application

Abstract

Fullerene molecules are composed entirely of carbon and can take the form of a hollow sphere, an ellipsoid, a tube, or many other shapes and sizes. The paper reports the synthesis and application of fullerenes. In the study, different types of fullerenes, synthetic methods, and applications were considered. Out of the two synthetic approaches, the laser irradiation of PAHs was mostly preferred to the electric arc heating of graphite, though it involves purification with chromatography. The findings reveal that the functionalization of fullerenes increases its application in medicine, photovoltaics, polymeric materials, water purification/environment, hydrogen storage, energy storage, and reinforcement composites. Greater study of fullerene molecules is needed, especially their incorporation into supramolecular assemblages and nanostructures to attain excellent performance in their respective tasks.