Isolation of >1 nm Diameter Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Species Using Aqueous Two-Phase Extraction

In this contribution we demonstrate the effective separation of single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) species with diameters larger than 1 nm through multistage aqueous two-phase extraction (ATPE), including isolation at the near-monochiral species level up to at least the diameter range of SWCNTs syn...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:ACS nano 2015-05, Vol.9 (5), p.5377-5390
Main Authors: Fagan, Jeffrey A, Hároz, Erik H, Ihly, Rachelle, Gui, Hui, Blackburn, Jeffrey L, Simpson, Jeffrey R, Lam, Stephanie, Hight Walker, Angela R, Doorn, Stephen K, Zheng, Ming
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
separation
single-wall carbon nanotube
SOLAR ENERGY
two-phase extraction
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In this contribution we demonstrate the effective separation of single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) species with diameters larger than 1 nm through multistage aqueous two-phase extraction (ATPE), including isolation at the near-monochiral species level up to at least the diameter range of SWCNTs synthesized by electric arc synthesis (1.3–1.6 nm). We also demonstrate that refined species are readily obtained from both the metallic and semiconducting subpopulations of SWCNTs and that this methodology is effective for multiple SWCNT raw materials. Using these data, we report an empirical function for the necessary surfactant concentrations in the ATPE method for separating different SWCNTs into either the lower or upper phase as a function of SWCNT diameter. This empirical correlation enables predictive separation design and identifies a subset of SWCNTs that behave unusually as compared to other species. These results not only dramatically increase the range of SWCNT diameters to which species selective separation can be achieved but also demonstrate that aqueous two-phase separations can be designed across experimentally accessible ranges of surfactant concentrations to controllably separate SWCNT populations of very small (∼0.62 nm) to very large diameters (>1.7 nm). Together, the results reported here indicate that total separation of all SWCNT species is likely feasible by the ATPE method, especially given future development of multistage automated extraction techniques.
ISSN:1936-0851
1936-086X
DOI:10.1021/acsnano.5b01123