Gas Storage in Fullerenes

Abstract

Fullerenes and in particular C₆₀ have been shown to store effectively a wide range of gases from simple monatomic rare gases to diatomics and polyatomics. A review of the research in this area conducted at ANSTO is given. The trapping of Ar, Kr, Xe, and CO₂ are discussed in detail whilst preliminary results pertaining to N₂O, CH₄, CF₄, C₂H₆ and SF₆ are also reported. A range of techniques have been used to elucidate both the structure of the new fullerene intercalated solid and the trapped gas itself. The preponderant techniques used, include infra-red absorption spectroscopy (IR), X-ray powder diffraction a (XRD), neutron powder diffraction (NRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA).