Radical-scavenging ability of hydrophilic carbon nanoparticles: From fullerene to its soot

We have recently developed a facile synthetic method for highly water-soluble fullerene, so-called fullerenol, for the treatment of fullerene with hydrogen peroxide. This method was applied to fullerene soot to yield the corresponding new hydrophilic carbon materials, and the obtained products were subjected to infrared spectroscopy and elemental analysis. The DLS particle size analysis demonstrated the relatively high dispersion of hydrophilic fullerene soot with a diameter of ̃70 nm in water, while the hydrophilic activated carbon obtained by the same treatment showed the larger aggregation with diameters of 200 and 970 nm. The surface analysis using FE-SEM showed the difference in morphology between fullerene soot and activated carbon as well as between before and after hydrophilic treatment of the soot with hydrogen peroxide. Moreover, this hydrophilic fullerene soot exhibited high antioxidant activity (%AOA) up to 87% compared with fullerenol C₆₀(OH) ₃₆ (54%) and C₆₀ (50%) evaluated by β-carotene bleaching method.