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Selective Desorption of Multiple High-Purity SWCNT Fractions from Hydrogels through Co-Surfactant Modulation

Tuesday, 31 May 2016: 14:00
Aqua 313 (Hilton San Diego Bayfront)
Y. Zhao, J. Clar, L. Li, J. Xu, T. Yuan, J. C. J. Bonzongo, and K. J. Ziegler (University of Florida)
The post-synthetic separation of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) has been studied with great interest in the past decade. While high-fidelity separations of SWCNTs by their (n,m) type have been demonstrated, a simple, high-throughput method is still desired. Our previous work has highlighted the importance of surfactant structure along SWCNT sidewalls in the separation mechanism. Here we report the selective desorption of a wide range of single-chirality (n,m) fractions in a single hydrogel-packed column. High-purity fractions of (n,m) nanotubes are obtained with high yield once a specific ratio of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)/sodium deoxycholate (DOC) co-surfactant solution is used. The differences between the co-surfactant ratios needed to separate two (n,m) species can sometime be very small. The separation can be obtained under a wide variety of co-surfactant background concentrations. However, better separations are achieved at higher background concentrations.