Synthesis of pyrrolidine ring-fused metallofullerene derivatives

The azomethine ylide generated from the reaction of sarconsine and formaldehyde adds to Gd@C82 to give the mono- through octo-adducts, while the direct interaction of sarcosine with Gd@C82 yields only the mono-adduct, which is characterized by HPLC, MALDI-TOF MS, UV–Vis–NIR and FT-IR. The reaction mechanism for this reaction is proposed to be a 1,3-dipolar addition.