ISOTOPE EFFECTS IN PLASMA ARCING EXPERIMENTS WITH VARIOUS CARBON ANODES

Carbon stable isotope ratios in solid products from plasma arcing brow n coal char, brown coal, and graphite electrodes have been measured. T he results support the proposal that components of the soot (fullerene black) originate from weak bond cleavage in the anode, rather than th at held by the traditional view, namely, that all products originate v ia C-1 routes.