I have a question. I am making my first batch of C60 in completely air-tight bottle and I have left very little unfilled area in the bottle. Now after 48h of stirring I see that dissolvement rate of C60 is quite a bit slower than usual. Should I open the bottle and let it "breathe" once over a 2 to 3 days or is it OK as it is by now. I am using 370ml of EVOO and 100mg of C60 in current mix.
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I'm developing a concern that c60-oo is somewhat air-sensitive, and think it would be safer to store it with as little oxygen as is practical. I'd REALLY like to see some serious lab work done to characterize exactly what chemical species are in c60-oo, and to really nail down their sensitivity to heat, light, and O2.
Yup same here [...]
I've now had a chance to try making a batch where I tried to keep oxygen exposure to a minimum, within reason. I used 99.95% crystals from SES, and added them directly to olive oil without grinding. I used a 500ml flask that was filled nearly to the top and stoppered, so there was very little air space. This was stirred in the dark for a very long time. I think it took about three weeks to fully react, although it was the first time I'd used that particular stirrer/flask setup, and I may have run it too slow for a while. At any rate, it didn't react quickly, and that's consistent with what mait reported above. I stored it in 60ml brown glass bottles with polyseal caps and no airspace. I used one immediately, and froze the rest for later use.
I've been using the low-oxygen batch for a couple months now, and it's different than other c60oo I've used. In particular, it has lost the anti-eczema / anti-allergy effect that I've seen from other batches, both commercial and homemade. I'd had an earlier experience with the tenuous nature of the anti-eczema effect- I was seeing it from my first batch, in which the c6O was ground in air, but after some months the effect faded. I suspected that was due to the horrible way that I was storing it, stoppered with a cork in a large half-full clear glass bottle (not in bright light, but not dark) at room temperature. I bought a new bottle of commercial c60oo, and my eczema cleared up again, so it wasn't a case of me becoming insensitive to the compound, rather the activity dropping off in my poorly-stored sample. I should note that the other activities I've seen from c60oo (improved endurance, resistance to postural hypotension, change in response to alcohol) still seem to be present in the low-oxygen batch.
My current thinking is that oxygen is required for the formation of the anti-eczema activity, but that extended exposure to oxygen (possibly and/or light exposure and/or room temperture) causes "the activity" to be destroyed. The most likely explanation is that there are two (or more) different compounds being formed, and that they have different biological properties, one of which is "the activity". C6O surfaces form epoxides pretty easily when exposed to air, and these epoxides can react with other compounds. There are other reactions that could occur between c6O and the fatty acid chains in vegetable oils, which don't necessarily involve oxygen, such as a Diels-Alder condensation. Perhaps such reactions are slower, and they would almost certainly result in different products.
I'm now finishing up a batch that used the same c6O and the same oil, but the c60 was ground in air (using a mortar and pestle) and the flask was half full, occasionally shaken. If I find that this batch has the anti-eczema activity, then I'll be on the road to better understanding this. If not, more experiments will be needed. This batch reacted quickly, and has a nice deep red color. One difference in this batch that I don't think is important, but that I note for completeness, is that the concentration is different. The low-O2 batch was 0.5mg/ml, and this one will be 0.9 if it fully reacts. My earlier high-O2 batch that had the activity was a lower concentration, approximately 0.6mg/ml. I'll report my results with the new high-O2 batch in a couple weeks.
On a different topic, you might notice that I've written "C6O" with the letter O instead of the character zero. I'm doing this to suppress those automatic links, which I find distracting.
