Separation of Double-Walled Carbon Nanotubes with Sensitivity to the Electronic Property of the Inner wall

• Applicant: Dr. Benjamin Flavel
• Subject Area: Physical Chemistry of Solids and Surfaces, Material Characterisation ; Synthesis and Properties of Functional Materials
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 281490160

Despite double walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs) sharing many of the same unique characteristics of their single-walled counterparts, they also have an additional suite of potential advantages due to the presence of a second wall, and it are these properties which make them attractive for integration into new devices. For example, it has long been envisaged that DWCNTs could be used in sensors, where the outer wall could be chemically functionalized whilst leaving the inner wall in its pristine state and available for signal transduction. However, the realization of these goals has so far been limited by the same challenge experienced by the single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) community, namely, the inherent heterogeneity of raw, as-produced DWCNT material. Similar to SWCNTs, the constituent walls of a DWCNT can either be semiconducting (S) or metallic (M) and this gives rise to four possible combinations of inner@outer wall, namely; M@M, M@S, S@M and S@S. To date, control over the electronic type of the outer-wall has been achieved, however the ‘holy grail’ remains to prepare DWCNT material with defined inner and outer wall. This project is aimed at addressing this challenge and utilizes scalable solution-processing techniques to prepare large quantities of sorted DWCNTs. Contrary to previous methodologies the proposed techniques are sensitive to the electronic type of a DWCNT (influenced by the combination of inner and outer wall type) and will allow for inner@outer wall selectivity. Furthermore, this project will be selective to not only the electronic type of the inner and outer wall but also their chiral type.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Brazil, USA
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Ralph Krupke, Ph.D.
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Ado Jorio; Dr. Ming Zheng