The manganese(III) acetate-mediated radical reaction of [60]fullerene (C 60 ) with three carboxylic acids, that is, bromoacetic acid, 3-chloropropionic acid, and 1-naphthylacetic acid, was investigated. The reaction of C 60 with bromoacetic acid in the presence of 4-(dimethylamino)pyridine afforded the anticipated C 60 -fused lactone, while the reaction with 3-chloropropionic acid unexpectedly led to the formation of a novel C 60 -fused lactone with the loss of one molecule of HCl. Interestingly, the reaction with 1-naphthylacetic acid under similar conditions gave both C 60 -fused lactone and 1,4-adduct, yet each of them could be selectively obtained by controlling reaction conditions. It was also observed that the C 60 -fused lactone bearing a bulky naphthyl group existed as two isomers.[60]fullerene, manganese(III) acetate, carboxylic acids, C 60 -fused lactones Citation: Li F B, Zhu S E, Wang G W. Manganese(III) acetate-mediated radical reaction of [60]fullerene with bromoacetic acid, 3-chloropropionic acid or 1-naphthylacetic acid. Since the availability of fullerenes in a macroscopic amount, various types of reactions for the functionalization of fullerenes have been discovered [1-3]. Nevertheless, the radical reaction [4] of [60] fullerene (C 60 ) promoted by metal salts is relatively scarce. Very limited works have reported the radical reaction of C 60 in the presence of metal salts such as those of ruthenium [5], iron [5,6], manganese [7-16], copper [12], and lead [16,17]. We were the first to report the free radical reaction of C 60 promoted by Mn(OAc) 3 ·2H 2 O [8]. It was found that the reaction of C 60 with carboxylic acids, carboxylic anhydrides, or malonic acids mediated by Mn(OAc) 3 ·2H 2 O could afford the rare C 60 -fused lactones [15,16]. The obtained C 60 -fused lactones undergo further transformation [15,18] to give fullerene hemiacetals, fullerene hemiketals, C 60 -fused dihydrofurans, fullerenols, and reductive ring-opening *Corresponding author (email: gwang@ustc.edu.cn)products 1,2-C 60 H(CHRCOOH). Hence, it is demanding to prepare more C 60 -fused lactones [19,20] with specific structures for further functionalization. In our recent work, we have chosen eleven cheap and easily available carboxylic acids as the reactants for the synthesis of C 60 -fused lactones [15,16]. Other carboxylic acids were also investigated for the lactonization of C 60 , and new aspects for the reaction were discovered. Herein we disclose these interesting results obtained from the Mn(OAc) 3 ·2H 2 O-mediated reaction of C 60 with bromoacetic acid, 3-chloropropionic acid, or 1-naphthylacetic acid.