The fullerenes are a unique carbon allotrope family that boast many desirable properties for therapeutic and diagnostic applications in nanomedicine, such as improved magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents, photodynamic therapy (PDT) agents and enzyme inhibitors, for example. These highly hydrophobic cages, however, must be modified in order to enter the human body safely and effectively, and avoid rejection. One such method is exohedral functionalisation: the covalent attachment of water-solubilising groups to the fullerene cage. PEGylation (the covalent attachment of polyethylene glycol (PEG) chains) is often used to functionalise nanoparticles with the aim of negating rejection by the body. Inspired by this, but looking to reduce the dominance of the long PEG chain, we functionalised fullerenes C60, C70, C84 and C90 with triethylene glycol based chains. We have comprehensively characterised the resultant molecular structures. Strikingly, depending on the size of the fullerene cage, these molecular building blocks self-assemble in aqueous solution to give complex hierarchical structures with macroporous architectures defined by a network of tubular fibrils. The mechanical properties of these hydrogels have been investigated using atomic force microscopy. Not only are these findings of interest to the study of the fundamentals of self-assembly processes, but the resultant hydrogel structures hold great promise for the utility of fullerenes in the field of nanomedicine.

Highly functionalised water-soluble fullerene derivatives: Cage size affects hierarchical self-assembled structures

256th National Meeting (2018)

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