Abstract
Finely dispersed C60-OH in a natural rubber improved significantly the physical properties due to the anti-aging effect. This effect arose from the facts that C60-OH could scavenge free radicals produced by the oxidative degradation and also that radicals generated from C60-OH could react with the carbon radicals and the peroxy radicals from the polymer degradation. In contrast, fullerenes like C60, C70, and C84 actually promoted the aging instead of the anti-aging effect, because C60, C70, and C84 finely dispersed in natural rubber could generate an active singlet oxygen produced by the photosensitized reactions in addition to the radicals caused by the oxidative degradation during the sample processing.
