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• Article
• Open Access
• Published: 19 May 2020

A facile approach to hydrophilic oxidized fullerenes and their derivatives as cytotoxic agents and supports for nanobiocatalytic systems

• Panagiota Zygouri  ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7137-66331,2,
• Konstantinos Spyrou1,2,
• Efstratia Mitsari3,
• María Barrio3,
• Roberto Macovez3,
• Michaela Patila4,
• Haralambos Stamatis4,
• Ioannis I. Verginadis5 nAff7,
• Anastasia P. Velalopoulou5 nAff7,
• Angelos M. Evangelou5,
• Zili Sideratou6,
• Dimitrios Gournis1 &
• Petra Rudolf  ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4418-17692 

volume 10, Article number: 8244 (2020) Cite this article

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Subjects

• Biotechnology
• Carbon nanotubes and fullerenes

AbstractA facile, environment-friendly, versatile and reproducible approach to the successful oxidation of fullerenes (oxC60) and the formation of highly hydrophilic fullerene derivatives is introduced. This synthesis relies on the widely known Staudenmaier’s method for the oxidation of graphite, to produce both epoxy and hydroxy groups on the surface of fullerenes (C60) and thereby improve the solubility of the fullerene in polar solvents (e.g. water). The presence of epoxy groups allows for further functionalization via nucleophilic substitution reactions to generate new fullerene derivatives, which can potentially lead to a wealth of applications in the areas of medicine, biology, and composite materials. In order to justify the potential of oxidized C60 derivatives for bio-applications, we investigated their cytotoxicity in vitro as well as their utilization as support in biocatalysis applications, taking the immobilization of laccase for the decolorization of synthetic industrial dyes as a trial case.