Selective growth of fullerene octahedra and flower-like particles by a liquid–liquid interfacial precipitation method for super-hydrophobic applications

Abstract

We demonstrate a simple, anisole/IPA interfacial precipitation of flower and octahedron-like fullerene micro-crystals using a liquid–liquid interfacial precipitation method. Both the flower and octahedron-like fullerene micro-crystals showed super-hydrophobic nature with a high water contact angle of 158.8°. While the other C₆₀ nanostructures including nanowhiskers, nanosheets and nanorods do not show significant water contact angle. To the best of our knowledge, this is higher than literature reported values for pure C₆₀-based nano/micro crystals. This clearly indicates that these crystals are promising candidates for super-hydrophobic applications.