Production of 11C in Fullerene Cages: Short Half-Life Tracers

Abstract 11C “raditfullerenes” Cn1 11C (n = 60, 70, 76 to 84) have been produced, purified by high performance liquid chromatography, and characterized using optical absorption spectroscopy and an ultrasensitive coincidence counting technique for radioactivity measurement. The first successful direct labelling of the higher fullerenes Cn-1 11C (n = 76 to 84), in addition to C59 11C and C69 11C, suggests that well characterized 11C radiofullerenes of various sizes could find possible applications as tracers in fluid flow systems (both biological and physical) and in porosity characterization of nanoscale membranes.