Submilligram-scale separation of near-zigzag single-chirality carbon nanotubes by temperature controlling a binary surfactant system

Abstract

Mass production of zigzag and near-zigzag single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), whether by growth or separation, remains a challenge, which hinders the disclosure of their previously unknown property and practical applications. Here, we report a method to separate SWCNTs by chiral angle through temperature control of a binary surfactant system of sodium cholate (SC) and SDS in gel chromatography. Eleven types of single-chirality SWCNT species with chiral angle less than 20° were efficiently separated including multiple zigzag and near-zigzag species. Among them, (7, 3), (8, 3), (8, 4), (9, 1), (9, 2), (10, 2), and (11, 1), were produced on the submilligram scale. The spectral detection results indicate that lowering the temperature induced selective adsorption and reorganization of the SC/SDS cosurfactants on SWCNTs with different chiral angles, amplifying their interaction difference with gel. We believe that this work is an important step toward industrial separation of single-chirality zigzag and near-zigzag SWCNTs.

Host–Guest Molecular Interaction Enabled Separation of Large-Diameter Semiconducting Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

“…Separating SWCNTs in solution phase has made great progress. ,,, Many separation techniques, such as dielectrophoresis, ultracentrifugation, chromatography, gel filtration, − and aqueous two-phase separation, − have been developed to isolate s-SWCNTs. However, in most of the reports, only s-SWCNTs with diameters below 1 nm were sorted .…”

The role of the bile salt surfactant sodium deoxycholate in aqueous two-phase separation of single-wall carbon nanotubes revealed by systematic parameter variations

“…Most importantly, the exchange of DOC with SDS molecules on the SWCNT surface, occurs in a diameter-dependent manner, and thereby allows for a diameter-dependent separation of SWCNTs with ATP. Similar competition between another bile salt surfactant sodium cholate and SDS was studied in the references [55,56]: it was shown that at high SDS concentrations bile salt micelles are penetrated by SDS molecules, changing the SWCNT environment.…”

Polyoxometalate steric hindrance driven chirality-selective separation of subnanometer carbon nanotubes

“…S7 and Table S1†), which is close to the purity of (6,5) SWCNTs sorted by other reported methods. 35,37 Both the absorption and PL characterization demonstrate that nearly monochiral (6,5) SWCNTs were extracted from {PW 12 }-SWCNTs by PCz wrapping.…”

“…There has been significant progress in the solution processing based sorting of SWCNTs with controlled structures, including ultracentrifugation, 29,30 electrophoretic 31 and/or chromatographic separation, 32–35 aqueous two-phase separation, 36–41 etc. Among them, the one-pot separation of semiconducting SWCNTs by conjugated polymers is of particular interest and has become the method of choice for circuit and solar cell applications due to the simplicity, high purity, and high thin film quality.…”