Purification of single-walled carbon nanotubes using a fixed bed reactor packed with zirconia beads

Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) soot produced by arc discharge was purified through gas and liquid phase oxidations. In the gas-phase oxidation, zirconia beads with different diameters of 1, 5, and 10 mm were packed together with raw SWCNT soot inside a vertical quartz tube to enhance air flow uniformity and an exposed surface area of the raw soot during thermal oxidation in air. A decrease of the bead sizes led to such a stronger oxidation of carbonaceous impurities that ∼10 wt.% higher weight loss was then achieved with the 1 mm beads than without them. A subsequent HNO3 treatment and the second thermal oxidation were engaged to improve further the purity of SWCNTs. Thermogravimetric (TG) analysis, scanning electron microscopy, high resolution transmission electron microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy were used to characterize the samples. The derivative TG (DTG) curves were deconvoluted to quantitatively determine the SWCNT purity of the samples. Our final purified samples showed a yield of ∼26%, a metal impurity of ∼7% and a SWCNT purity of ∼83% as calculated from the deconvoluted DTG curves.