화학공학소재연구정보센터
Journal of Materials Science, Vol.56, No.1, 380-391, 2021
Selective extraction of fullerene C-60 by in situ interweaved AgNO3 complex encapsulated C-60 molecular cages
With an in situ synthesized AgNO3 complex molecular cage, icosahedral C-60 can be selectively extracted from fullerene mixture by a facial liquid-liquid interfacial precipitation, resulting in exclusive C-60 organometallic microcrystal (C-60/C-70 = 6/1). By exploiting its intrinsic insolubility against nonpolar solvent, the C-60 can be separated from the homologues, C-70, which contrarily is assembled through merely hydrophobic interaction and pi-pi stacking. The AgNO3 complex encaged C-60 crystal was morphologically and structurally characterized by SEM, Raman and XRD spectra to revealing the underlying separation mechanism. The selective extraction efficiency (89.7%) was semiquantitatively characterized by combined optical spectroscopy and mass spectrometry, indicating a decent specificity of spontaneously formed molecular cage toward C-60 extraction. Thus, this discovery of a template-specific molecular cavity would pave the way to advance molecular imprinting technology using supramolecular array for fullerene separation, prevailing over the conventional "design-synthesis-performance" strategy by substantially reducing the laborious work and economic cost. [GRAPHICS]