An efficient approach toward production of near-zigzag single-chirality carbon nanotubes.

Li, Yahan; Li, Linhai; Jiang, Hua; Qian, Liu; He, Maoshuai; Zhou, Duanliang; Jiang, Kaili; Liu, Huaping et al. · Sci Adv · 2024

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Synthesizing single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with a narrow chirality distribution is essential for obtaining pure chirality materials through postgrowth sorting techniques. Using carbon monoxide chemical vapor deposition, we devise a ruthenium (Ru) catalyst supported by silica for the bulk production of SWCNTs containing only a few (<i>n</i>, <i>m</i>) species. The result is attributed to the limited carbon dissociation on the supported Ru clusters, favoring the growth of only small-diameter SWCNTs at comparable growth rates. The resulting materials expedite high-purity single chirality separation using gel chromatography, leading to unprecedented yields of 3.5% for (9, 1) and 5.2% for (9, 2) nanotubes, which surpass those separated from HiPco SWCNTs by two orders of magnitude. This work sheds light on the large-quantity synthesis of SWCNTs with enriched species beyond near-armchair ones for their high-yield separation.