Estimation of the efficiency of the C-60 and C-70 fullerenes as inhibitors of the radical chain oxidation of cumene

In the present work, the antioxidant efficiency of the C-60 and C-70 fullerenes has been quantitatively assessed with two methods: the chemiluminescence method and semilogarithmic method for processing kinetic curves based on the transformation of kinetic absorption curves at AIBN-induced cumene oxidation. As found, the measured values of the stoichiometric inhibition coefficient for C-70 fullerene (f = 5.1 and 3.2) are higher than for C-60 (f = 1.1 and 1.1), which indicates a higher inhibitory activity of the C-70 fullerene as compared with C-60. At the same time, both fullerenes demonstrate lower reactivity toward peroxyl radicals generated upon the hydrocarbon oxidation in comparison with well-known antioxidants, ionol and alpha-tocopherol.