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

A carbon nanobelt (CNB) is a loop of fused benzene rings and a C 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 C molecules in 1,2-dichlorobenzene at room temperature via bottom-up self-assembly, setting the molar concentrations of (6,6)CNBs and C 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., C, C and CN.