Solar Production of Fullerenes and Carbon Nanotubes

Various methods have been explored to produce fullerenes and carbon nanotubes but, the most attractive is the vaporization of graphite under inert gas atmosphere. Different possibilities are used to induce carbon vaporization, one of them been the high intensity of concentrated solar radiation obtained with the Odeillo solar furnace facilities. The first experiments done in 1993, (both in the USA and France) have shown that we can produce C₆₀, C₇₀ and higher fullerenes by the solar route. But the large scale production of these material with high yield and selectivity is still a real problem which reduce the development of the practical applications. The solar approach, may provide a solution to the problems encountered: at small scale, using a 2 kW solar furnace, we can easily observe the yield and the structure evolution of the produced materials and have a better knowledge of their formation mechanisms; scaling- up the experiments, with the 1000 kW solar furnace, we can increase the production using the better set of synthesis parameters deduced from previous experiments.