C 240 — The most chemically inert fullerene?

Abstract

The reactivity of the fullerenes is primarily a function of their strain, as measured by the pyramidalization angle or curvature of the conjugated carbon atoms. The development of faceting in the structure of large icosahedral fullerenes leads to a minimum in the value of the maximum fullerene pyramidalization angle that lies in the vicinity of C 240. On this basis it is argued that C 240 will be the most chemically inert fullerene. This observation explains the production of [10,10] single-walled nanotubes because a C 240 hemisphere is required for the nucleation of such tubes.