Purification of Uranium-based Endohedral Metallofullerenes (EMFs) by Selective Supramolecular Encapsulation and Release

Abstract

Supramolecular nanocapsule 1⋅(BArF) is able to sequentially and selectively entrap recently discovered U@C and unprecedented ScCU@C, simply by soaking crystals of 1⋅(BArF) in a toluene solution of arc-produced soot. These species, selectively and stepwise absorbed by 1⋅(BArF), are easily released, obtaining highly pure fractions of U@C and ScCU@C in one step. ScCU@C represents the first example of a mixed metal actinide-based endohedral metallofullerene (EMF). Remarkably, the host-guest studies revealed that 1⋅(BArF) is able to discriminate EMFs with the same carbon cage but with different encapsulated cluster and computational studies provide support for these observations.