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Cleaning up fullerenols

One route suggested for attenuating the potential toxicity of fullerenes is to hydrolyze the molecules. Recent studies show that a fullerene s toxicity seems to decrease as the number of hydroxyl groups on its surface increases. Although fullerenols may be less toxic, they are far more mobile in the environment than their all-carbon counterparts. Fullerenols potential accumulation in the environment prompted Authors to develop a route to immobilize the molecules in aqueous solution. They have found that, within a wide pH range, fullerenols react rapidly and irreversibly with various metal salts to form insoluble metal-hydroxyfullerene aggregates. Authors suspect that the fullerenols, despite their considerable size, are chelating the metal ions. Calculations on a simplified system show that as many as three fullerene diols can comfortably chelate a ferric ion (shown; C = gray, O = red, Fe = green). The team says their results could be a route to fullerenol remediation if the aggregates prove to be nontoxic.


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