Purity assessment of single-wall carbon nanotubes, using optical absorption spectroscopy

A demand currently exists for a method of assessing the purity of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), which will allow for meaningful material comparisons. An established metric and protocol will enable accurate and reproducible purity claims to be substantiated. In the present work, the ability to accurately quantify the mass fraction of SWNTs in the carbonaceous portion of a given sample is demonstrated, using optical absorption spectroscopy on both laser and arc discharge-generated SWNT-N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMA) dispersions. Verification of purity assessment protocols is based upon constructed sample sets comprising designed mass fractions of purified SWNTs and representative carbonaceous synthesis byproducts. Application of a previously reported method (Itkis et al. Nano Lett. 2003, 3, 309) based on a ratio of the areal absorbance from linear subtractions of the second interband electronic transitions of semiconducting SWNTs (E-s(22)) has shown a severe overestimation of SWNT purity (average error > 24%). Instead, the development of a nonlinear, pi-plasmon model, which considers overlap of electronic transitions and peak broadening, has dramatically improved the purity assessment accuracy (average error < 7%), derived from a strong correlation to the constructed sample sets. This approach has enabled corroboration of rapid assessment procedures, such as absorbance peak maxima ratio and Beer's law analysis, directed at purification monitoring and synthesis sample screening. Specifically, a simple protocol for purity assessment of laser and arc-discharge SWNTs has been established that can be extended to other synthetic types (i.e. CVD, HiPco, etc.) and diameter distributions.