Due to their chemical and thermodynamic stability, fullerenes could play an important role in encapsulation of radionuclides for applications in radioimmunotherapy. In this abstract, we report the first synthesis of the actinium endohedral fullerenes. The a-emitter 225Ac (t1/2 =10 d) was contained in fullerenes by the d.c. arc discharge/catcher method in a He atmosphere. Endohedral 225Ac and the bulk of C60 was dissolved from the catcher electrode (a Pt disk cover with a thin layer of C60) in toluene under N2 and converted to malonic ester derivative. The cage stability was enhanced significantly by coupling the fullerene surface with organic adducts. Repeated washing of the organic phase with dilute HNO3 demonstrated that a small fraction of 225Ac (~ 1 %) could not be removed from the organic phase and presumably were inside the fullerenes. The 4.8-min Fr-221 (the a-decay daughter of 225Ac), however, was observed to leak from the cage as the results of the nuclear recoil process. ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle LLC for U.S. DOE under Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725

Synthesis and chemical stability of actinium-fullerenes

240th National Meeting (2010)

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