High Resolution Length Fractionation of Surfactant Dispersed Carbon Nanotubes

Published

December 23, 2012

Author(s)

Constantine Y. Khripin, Xiaomin X. Tu, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Ming Zheng

Abstract

Length fractionation of colloidal carbon nanotube dispersions is required for many studies. Size- exclusion chromatography (SEC) has been reported as a reliable method for high resolution length fractionation of DNA-dispersed single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), but has not found use for more commonly used bile salt dispersed SWCNTs due to dispersion stability and quality problems. Here we describe the extension of SEC for high resolution length fractionation of bile salt dispersed SWCNTs using porous silica-based beads as the stationary phase and bile salt solution as the mobile phase, and demonstrate that the prior difficulties with the method can be readily overcome. Further, we use the new SEC method to length-fractionate bile salt dispersed SWCNTs pre-purified by ultracentrifugation methods. Unlike length-fractionated samples obtained from the raw material, and all length-fractionated samples previously reported, these double-purified samples show little dependence of optical absorbance spectra on length. Comparing length fractions of 360 nm and 130 nm length, the baseline changes by

Citation

Analytical Chemistry

Volume

85

Issue

3

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

DOI Link

Keywords

carbon nanotube, length fractionation, absorption spectrum

Citation

Khripin, C. , Tu, X. , Fagan, J. and Zheng, M. (2012), High Resolution Length Fractionation of Surfactant Dispersed Carbon Nanotubes, Analytical Chemistry, [online], https://doi.org/10.1021/ac303349q (Accessed October 10, 2025)