Principles of Fullerene Reactivity

The fullerenes have been established as new and versatile building blocks in organic chemistry. A large number of fascinating fullerene derivatives, especially of the icosahedral buck-minsterfullerene C₆₀, have been synthesized. The chemistry of C₆₀ continues to be good for many surprises. However, based on present knowledge a series of reactivity principles can be deduced which makes derivatization of this all carbon cluster more and more predictable. In this article first the geometric and electronic properties of the parent molecule are analyzed. The bent structure of the carbon network C₆₀ and the filling of its molecular orbital with 60 π-electrons dictate the chemical reactivity. A very important aspect that was introduced with the investigation of fullerene chemistry is the shape dependence of reactivity.