Room temperature synthesis of water-soluble spherical particles of a uniform diameter composed of carbon nanobelts and C60 molecules.

A carbon nanobelt (CNB) is a loop of fused benzene rings and a C60 molecule is a football shaped fullerene composed of 60 carbon atoms. In this study, we synthesize uniform spherical particles composed of (6,6)CNBs and C60 molecules in 1,2-dichlorobenzene at room temperature via bottom-up self-assembly, setting the molar concentrations of (6,6)CNBs and C60 molecules at appropriate values, and find that the particles are monodisperse even in water. The present room temperature synthetic methodology may well be applied to the creation of nano/micro structures/materials using basic carbon nano units such as cycloparaphenylene (CPP, carbon nanorings) and fullerenes; e.g., C60, C70 and C59N.