Future Procedures for Isolation of Higher Fullerenes in Natural and Synthetic Soot

We describe the extraction methodologies for the isolation of fullerenes in synthetic “Graphitic Smokes” soot. These same methods were used to isolate natural fullerenes in some carbonaceous chondrite meteorites and in meteor impact-related sedimentary deposits previously described in the literature. In addition, a new functionalizatoin methodology that significantly enhances the yield of fullerenes extracted in synthetic fullerene material (up to 20% fullerene) will be discussed. Both laser desorption-mass spectrometry and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy were used to characterize fullerenes extracted from the synthetic soot. These extraction methods promise to reveal new insights on the encapsulaton of noble gases in a variety of fullerene and fullerene-related structures up to C₁₀₀₀.