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Vyas VK, Bacanu GR, Soundararajan M, Marsden ES, Jafari T, Shugai A, Light ME, Nagel U, Rõõm T, Levitt MH, Whitby RJ. Squeezing formaldehyde into C 60 fullerene. Nat Commun 2024; 15:2515. [PMID: 38514674 PMCID: PMC10957948 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46886-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2023] [Accepted: 03/13/2024] [Indexed: 03/23/2024] Open
Abstract
The cavity inside fullerene C60 provides a highly symmetric and inert environment for housing atoms and small molecules. Here we report the encapsulation of formaldehyde inside C60 by molecular surgery, yielding the supermolecular complex CH2O@C60, despite the 4.4 Å van der Waals length of CH2O exceeding the 3.7 Å internal diameter of C60. The presence of CH2O significantly reduces the cage HOMO-LUMO gap. Nuclear spin-spin couplings are observed between the fullerene host and the formaldehyde guest. The rapid spin-lattice relaxation of the formaldehyde 13C nuclei is attributed to a dominant spin-rotation mechanism. Despite being squeezed so tightly, the encapsulated formaldehyde molecules rotate freely about their long axes even at cryogenic temperatures, allowing observation of the ortho-to-para spin isomer conversion by infrared spectroscopy. The particle in a box nature of the system is demonstrated by the observation of two quantised translational modes in the cryogenic THz spectra.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vijyesh K Vyas
- School of Chemistry, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, Southampton, UK
| | - George R Bacanu
- School of Chemistry, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, Southampton, UK
| | | | | | - Tanzeeha Jafari
- National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics, Akademia tee 23, 12618, Tallinn, Estonia
- Department of Cybernetics, Tallinn University of Technology, Ehitajate tee 5, 19086, Tallinn, Estonia
| | - Anna Shugai
- National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics, Akademia tee 23, 12618, Tallinn, Estonia
| | - Mark E Light
- School of Chemistry, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, Southampton, UK
| | - Urmas Nagel
- National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics, Akademia tee 23, 12618, Tallinn, Estonia
| | - Toomas Rõõm
- National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics, Akademia tee 23, 12618, Tallinn, Estonia.
| | - Malcolm H Levitt
- School of Chemistry, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, Southampton, UK.
| | - Richard J Whitby
- School of Chemistry, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, Southampton, UK.
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