title: Peroxide-mediated selective cleavage of [60]fullerene skeleton bonds: towards the synthesis of open-cage fulleroid C55O5.
abstract: Replacement of a pentagon in [60]fullerene with five oxygen atoms yields the open-cage compound C55O5 with five carbonyl groups on the rim of the orifice. Our attempts to synthesize such a target molecule starting from C60 have led us to prepare the fullerene-mixed peroxides such as C60(OO-t-Bu)6 with all the peroxo addends surrounding the same pentagon. Further investigations of the peroxide chemistry have generated various open-cage fullerene derivatives, including the carbon monoxide encapsulated endohedral compound CO@C59O6. This Personal Account mainly discusses peroxide-based processes resulting in selective cleavage of the fullerene skeleton bonds.
authors.affiliation: Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of the Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, P. R. China; State Key Laboratory of Organometallic Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 354 Fenglin Lu, Shanghai, 200032, P. R. China. gan@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Liangbing
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gan
keywords: cage compounds; fullerenes; molecular containers; peroxides; radical reactions