Journey to the Holy Grail of a coordination saturated buckyball

Exohedral metallofullerenes are increasingly gaining attention from both academia and industry due to their unique structural and electronic properties. C60 provides an incredible opportunity to bind up to 30 metals on the surface to realize an icosidodecahedral C60@M30 supramolecular complex, the Holy Grail of a coordination saturated buckyball. Recently, the Li and Zhan groups reported a rhombicuboctahedral C60@Cu24 core–shell structure, a giant leap on their journey toward the Holy Grail.