Electrochemistry of perfluorinated fullerenes: the case of three isomers of C60F36

The structurally similar T, C1 and C3 isomers of C60F36 show significant differences in electrochemical behaviour, the reduction potentials (vs. SCE) being 0.04, 0.07, and 0.12 V, respectively. The relative addend positions influence both the energetics of the first one-electron reduction of C60F36 and the stability of electrochemically generated C 60 F 36 - . Thus whereas full reversibility of the first reduction is observed at scan rates as low as 0.5 V/s for C3-C60F36, reversible peaks were obtained for T- and C1-C60F36 only at scan rates ⩾50 V/s. The subsequent multi-electron reductions of C60F36 occur at more negative potentials, and are accompanied by irreversible loss of fluorides, analogous to the behaviour of other perfluorinated fullerenes.