A Novel Method for Sorting Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes by Length

摘要

We report a novel system for sorting single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) by length via cross-flow filtration with three membrane filters of different pore sizes, 1.0, 0.45, and 0.2 μm. SWCNTs dispersed in water with the help of polymer type detergents, such as sodium carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and polyoxyethylene stearyl ether (Brij 700), were successfully fractionated into four samples, and the atomic force microscopy (AFM) observation of those samples confirmed that their length distribution peaks are within the expected ranges from pore sizes of used filters. However, the result of the similar filtration process using a non-polymer detergent, sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS), showed no pronounced correlation between the length distribution of SWCNTs and the pore size. The observed difference in the sorting phenomena caused by the detergent type suggests that the permeation property depends on the complex structure resulting from the dispersed SWCNTs and detergent molecules.