Scalable methods for efficient electronic separation of carbon nanotubes
- Detailed Technology Description
- Professor Joseph Lyding of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has developed a scalable and powerful separation method to produce electronically pure nanotubes.
- *Abstract
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Professor Joseph Lyding of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has developed ascalable and powerful separation method to produce electronically pure carbon nanotubes.
Commonlyused methods suffer drawbacks. For example, density gradient ultracentrifugation does not easilypreserve longer CNTs and requires surfactants and dielectrophoresis requires pre-deposited metalelectrodes on a surface for separation and can suffer from inconsistency.
This technique eliminatesthese issues as it does not significantly affect the CNT structure nor require performance-degrading,difficult-to-remove surfactants and allows in-solution separation compatible for volume production.
Here a magnetic field is applied to a solution of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), coupling morestrongly to the metallic SWNTs than to the semiconducting SWNTs, enabling efficient separation of the two types of SWNTs. Measurements have shown enhancements of > 250% of metallic SWNTs insolutions after separation.
For more information about this technology, please contact the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Office of Technology Management at otm@illinois.edu.
- Country/Region
- USA
