Oxford Spins Off Buckyball Maker

The University of Oxford has spun off a new company named Designer Carbon Materials, which aims to commercialize a process for manufacturing fullerenes, also known as buckyballs. The firm’s technology is based on research by Kyriakos Porfyrakis from the university’s department of materials. The new firm plans to produce a range of materials that can be inserted into the ­hollow interiors of the spherical carbon cage structures, an approach that can create novel and intriguing properties, Porfyrakis says. The firm expects its first customer orders for such endohedral fullerenes to be placed within the next few months.