Influence of carbon forms and doped elements in the electrodes for the production of fullerenes

Production of fullerenes using electrodes made of four kinds of pure carbon bearing materials and artificial graphite doped with seven kinds of elements such as B, Y, La, Gd, Ce, Pr and Nd have been examined. The yields of fullerenes were in a range between 12-20% of the soot produced for all pure carbon electrodes, even though the vaporization rate of amorphous carbon electrodes was about ten times higher than that of the natural graphite electrodes. However, for the doped graphite electrodes, the yield of fullerenes was less than 5%. From the above results it is concluded that fullerenes can be effectively produced with the pure carbon electrodes made of any form of carbon bearing materials used in this study and there is little material dependence on the yield of fullerenes. Furthermore, the experiments using the artificial graphite electrodes doped with metal elements suggests that the purity of the carbon electrodes affects the yield of fullerenes greatly.