Fullerene synthesis using solar energy

Fullerene synthesis was performed at 2 kW and 50 kW scales by vaporization of graphite at the focus of solar furnaces. We obtained a fullerene yield of about 10% with a 50-mg/h production at small scale for target temperature ranging from 3000 K to 3700 K and pressure between 50 hPa and 250 hPa. We achieved the reactor scale up on the basis of numerical simulations and of pertinent parameters such as pressure and carbon atom fraction in the buffer gas. The production of 1 g/h fullerene was still obtained choosing pertinent pressure and carbon atom dilution in argon. New experiments are in progress to improve this result.