25th anniversary article: 25 years of fullerene research in electron transfer chemistry.

The past 25 years have served as a test bed for exploring the chemistry and physics, in general, and the electron transfer chemistry, in particular, of low-dimensional carbon. Nevertheless, the new realm started with the advent of fullerenes, followed in chronological order by carbon nanotubes, and, more recently, by graphene. The major thrust of this Review article is to historically recap the versatility of fullerenes regarding the design, the synthesis, and the tests as an electroactive building block in photosynthetic reaction mimics, photovoltaics, and catalysis.