The reactivity of fullerene C 60 toward peroxy radicals RO 2 • was tested by the chemilumi nescence method. A comparison of the influence of C 60 and known inhibitors on the kinetics of liquid phase chemiluminescence (CL) during oxidation of a series of hydrocarbons (ethyl benzene, cyclohexane, n dodecane, and oleic acid) shows that the fullerene does not react with the RO 2 • radicals. A sharp decrease in the CL intensity observed upon C 60 addition is caused by the quenching of CL emitters with fullerene but not by inhibition of hydrocarbon oxidation.Fullerene С 60 is named the "radical sponge" due to its ability to efficiently add free radicals of different chemical nature to form fullerenyl radicals 1-3 :Then the fullerenyl radicals dimerize and/or add an additional amount of radicals. 2 Radicals Х • are usually prepared by photolysis or thermolysis of compounds be longing to different classes. At the same time, published data on the reactivity of fullerene С 60 toward peroxy radi cals RO 2 • are scarce and contradictory. For instance, the reviews on the reactions of С 60 with free radicals 2 and other reagents 1,4 contain no data on the interaction of С 60 with the RO 2 • radicals. Fullerene С 60 was found to inhibit the thermooxidative destruction (TOD) at 200-300 °С of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), 5-7 polystyrene, 5 and copolymers of methyl methacrylate (MMA) with methacrylamides. 8 The antioxidant activity of С 60 during TOD of these polymers was presumably attributed 7 to the reactionR i is macroradical.The work 9 and site of the Pushchino Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences* reported the inhibi tion effect on the peroxide oxidation of lipids by fullerene С 60 bound in a complex with polyvinylpyrrolidone. In this case, reactivity of С 60 toward free radicals was mea sured by procedures of nitroblue tetrasolium reduction and chemiluminescence (CL) arising in peroxide oxida tion of lipids. The results of using the first method indi cate that the fullerene had no antioxidative properties. However, a decrease in the overall CL intensity in the presence of fullerene С 60 suggested 9 its inhibition ability.The above facts and an important role of the RO 2 • radicals in oxidative chemical and biochemical pro cesses 10,11 and inhibition effect of fullerene С 60 on living activities of different viruses and pathogenic bacteria 4,12,13 show that the study of antioxidative properties of С 60 , namely, the reactivity toward radicals RO 2 • , is an urgent problem.In this work, the reactivity of fullerene С 60 toward peroxy radicals was studied by the CL method. The effi ciency of the CL method in studying activity of inhibitors has previously been shown 14,15 for the oxidation of differ ent classes of hydrocarbons.
ExperimentalCommercial fullerite, whose purity (С 60 99.8%) was moni tored by HPLC and elemental analysis, was used. Ethylbenzene (EB), o dichlorobenzene (DCB), n dodecane (DD), and cyclo hexane (CH) (chromatographically pure) and oleic acid (OA, edible quality) were used without addi...