Manipulating the Structural Transformation of Fullerene Microtubes to Fullerene Microhorns Having Microscopic Recognition Properties

Qin Tang; Subrata Maji; Bohong Jiang; Jiao Sun; Wenli Zhao; Jonathan P Hill; Katsuhiko Ariga; Harald Fuchs; Qingmin Ji; Lok Kumar Shrestha

doi:10.1021/acsnano.9b05938

Manipulating the Structural Transformation of Fullerene Microtubes to Fullerene Microhorns Having Microscopic Recognition Properties

ACS Nano. 2019 Dec 24;13(12):14005-14012. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.9b05938. Epub 2019 Dec 6.

Authors

Qin Tang¹, Subrata Maji², Bohong Jiang¹, Jiao Sun¹, Wenli Zhao¹, Jonathan P Hill², Katsuhiko Ariga^{2

3}, Harald Fuchs⁴, Qingmin Ji¹, Lok Kumar Shrestha²

Affiliations

¹ Herbert Gleiter Institute of Nanoscience , Nanjing University of Science and Technology , 200 Xiaolingwei , Nanjing 210094 , China.
² International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) , 1-1 Namiki, Ibaraki , Tsukuba 305-0044 , Japan.
³ Graduate School of Frontier Science , The University of Tokyo , Kashiwa , Chiba 277-0827 , Japan.
⁴ Center for Nanotechnology , University of Münster , Wilhelm Klemm-Street 10 , D-48149 Münster , Germany.

PMID: 31794176
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.9b05938

Abstract

We report the production of fullerene microtubes (FMTs), having solid cores bisecting their tubular cavities, from solutions of mixtures of fullerene C₆₀ and C₇₀ and have demonstrated the structural transformation of FMTs to fullerene microhorns (FMHs) upon their exposure to alcohol/mesitylene mixtures at 25 °C. The conically shaped microhorns have hollow interiors and exhibit preferential recognition of silica particles over fullerene C₇₀, polystyrene (PS) latex, PS hydroxylate, or PS carboxylate particles of similar dimensions due to strong electrostatic interactions between negatively charged FMHs and positively charged silica particles.

Keywords: fullerene crystals; fullerene microhorn; microscopic recognition; self-assembly; structural transformation.