COVALENT INCORPORATION OF AN ALKOXYSILYL-SUBSTITUTED [60]FULLERENE DERIVATIVE IN SOL-GEL MATRICES

A [60] fullerene adduct bearing a reactive triethoxysilyl functional g roup has been synthesized. The high solubility of this adduct in polar solvents enables its covalent incorporation into a sol-gel silica mat rix. In comparison to the conventional admiring of 'naked' fullerene t o silica sols, this approach has the following distinct advantages: (i ) even with an adduct content of up to 2 wt% (related to SiO2), the re action mixture remains homogeneous during the entire sol-gel process, and (ii) the covalently attached fullerene adduct is fixed in the sili ca matrix and therefore cannot migrate.