Analytical Bio-Chemistry Laboratories, Inc.

Kenneth C Kuo

David L Stalling

Congyuan Guo

Said Saim

Kevin P Kelly

The present invention relates to buckminsterfullerenes or related condensed carbon molecules covalently bonded to a polymer particle or a siliceous support particle and their use for packing media for column chromatography.

Chemically bound fullerenes to resin and silica supports and their use

A process has been developed to effectively separate and recover essentially pure amounts of both C.sub.60 and C.sub.70 from carbon soot and higher molecular weight fullerenes. This process first extracts the fullerenes from carbon soot and then sequentially separates the C.sub.60 and C.sub.70 molecules using high performance or low pressure adsorption chromatography packed column containing a gel polymer having aromaticity and a pore size ranging from 10 to 500 .ANG.. In this process, a first stage of fractionation of the fullerenes is preferably accomplished by selective supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) of C.sub.60. Unrecovered C.sub.60 and C.sub.70 molecules are then extracted by supercritical fluid extraction at a higher pressure and/or higher temperature.

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Columbia, MO, United States of America

Kenneth C Kuo