Progress of Novel Structures of Fullerene

Fullerenes are a class of cage-like molecules made of hexagons and exactly pentagons.Depending on the so-called isolated pentagon rule(IPR),fullerenes can be divided into two different types,i.e.,IPR-satisfying and non-IPR fullerenes.In the past twenty-five years,significant efforts have been paid to explore macroscopic synthesis and novel geometric structures of fullerene.More than 60 fullerenes ranging from C20 to C104 have been reported to date,including about 40 IPR-satisfying fullerenes and 20 non-IPR fullerenes that were typically stabilized by endohedral or exohedral derivatization.In this article all the novel structures of fullerene reported so far are reviewed,the future perspective for fullerene research is commented.