Sorting out carbon nanotubes

摘要

Chinese scientists have developed a method to separate mixtures of metallic and semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) by a two-step dispersion-centrifugation process.rnHao-Li Zhang's team at Lanzhou University revealed that the key to their separation strategy is in the strong interactions between SWCNTs and aromatic molecules. The team found that by carefully choosing the aromatic molecule, this caused the two types of nanotube to disperse differently in an organic solvent. They then centrifuged the mixture, firstly extracting the metallic SWCNTs and then the semiconducting ones.