Related docs:
Research Interests
Fullerenes chemistry
From grad school:
Chapters of my MS thesis on Stochastic Searches (all in Spanish):
More information about my Surface chemistry projects and previous projects
-----------------I was involved in other two current research activities:
Fullerene Chemistry
I had the opportunity to join Prof. M. Saunders and Prof. J. Cross groups to produce endohedral fullerene derivatives. Basically we were interested to isolate in tangible amounts a whole series of noble gases atoms and other small molecules inside the fullerene cage. The incorporation of the noble gas atom to the fullerenic spheric confinement required the development of an unique high-temperature, high-pressure reactor.
The products were a perfect target for all sorts of physical and chemical studies. First of all, the interaction between the noble gas atom (or other diatomic species like CO and N2) was far from being considered covalent. Instead, it was considered a van der Waals system, yet showing a great stability. This allowed us to pursue a whole serie of spectroscopic studies, concieving the C60 storage-release capability as a molecular nanocarrier of monoatoms and diatoms.
Also, because of the ability to use isotopic species, endohedral fullerenes were also thought to be used as a labeled, inhert and safe tags when attached to a more complex molecular system. For example in the biological manipulation, the elucidation by spectroscopy of the endohedral fullerene as a part of a robust macromolecule, could facilitate the identification of the whole biological system, its reaction pathways and further chemical manipulation. In this project i was responsible for finding new ways of producing and isolating the last objective of the noble gas series: Xe@C60. I also prepared endohedral fullerene cycloadducts from Diels-Alder reactions, for spectroscopic studies.
Here there is a not that old and very interesting paper by R. A. Freitas Jr. that discusses the potential of this sort of endohedral fullerenes and its implications in nanotechnology.
Fullerene and Diels-Alder Cycloadditions
I also did some fullerene chemistry, using novel exo-diene of heterocyclic molecules with biological activity, with Prof. H. Jimenez-Vazquez as my advisor, at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) in Mexico City. At that time the reactivity of C60 was under high scrutinity, and cycloadditions were one of the preferred organic transformations over the unique fullerenic dienophiles. Basically i was in charge of finding the proper conditions to make the C60 undergo cycloadditions with new exo-dienes, as despicted below.
-----------------
More information about my surface chemistry projects and previous research projects