About: Endohedral hydrogen fullerene

Endohedral hydrogen fullerene (H2@C60) is an endohedral fullerene containing molecular hydrogen. This chemical compound has a potential application in molecular electronics and was synthesized in 2005 at Kyoto University by the group of Koichi Komatsu. Ordinarily the payload of endohedral fullerenes are inserted at the time of the synthesis of the fullerene itself or is introduced to the fullerene at very low yields at high temperatures and high pressure. This particular fullerene was synthesised in an unusual way in three steps starting from pristine C60 fullerene: cracking open the carbon framework, insert hydrogen gas and zipping up by organic synthesis methods.