Novel method for C60 synthesis: A thermal plasma at atmospheric pressure

Abstract

We report here that fullerenes (C60,C70,C84, etc.) can be fabricated in a 7% yield by carbon particle evaporation in a hybrid plasma which is characterized by the superposition of a rf plasma and a dc arc jet operated at atmospheric pressure. We found that increasing the pressure in the plasma gas increases the yield of fullerenes. We also investigated the effect of introducing the gas for quenching the plasma gas on the yield of fullerenes. Furthermore, this method has also been used to produce metal fulleride.