EXTRACTION AND PURIFICATION OF FULLERENES - A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW

This review summarizes the advances of the last four years in the fiel d of fullerenes purification. Purification involves extraction from so ots, which may be considered as a prepurification step, and separation by liquid chromatography, where the different stationary phases teste d are listed. We also describe other purification techniques, like elu tion on molecular sieves or activated charcoal, gel permeation, and su percritical fluids purification. Our purpose is to show the reader the general trends for obtaining pure. C-60 and C-70. We conclude that no technique is better than another, but that each purification method m ay offer its own qualities, depending on the application.