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

Dehua Yang; Linhai Li; Xiaojun Wei; Yanchun Wang; Weiya Zhou; Hiromichi Kataura; Sishen Xie; Huaping Liu

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abe0084

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

Sci Adv. 2021 Feb 17;7(8):eabe0084. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe0084. Print 2021 Feb.

Authors

Dehua Yang^{1

2}, Linhai Li^{1

2

3}, Xiaojun Wei^{1

2

4}, Yanchun Wang^{1

2}, Weiya Zhou^{1

2

4

5}, Hiromichi Kataura⁶, Sishen Xie^{1

2

4

5}, Huaping Liu^{7

2

3

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
² Beijing Key Laboratory for Advanced Functional Materials and Structure Research, Beijing 100190, China.
³ Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁴ Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan, Guangdong 523808, China.
⁵ School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁶ Nanomaterials Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba 305-8565, Japan.
⁷ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. liuhuaping@iphy.ac.cn.

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.

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