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Structural control of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with uniform properties is critical not only for their property modulation and functional design but also for applications in electronics, optics, and optoelectronics. To achieve this goal, various separation techniques have been developed in the past 20 years through which separation of high-purity semiconducting/metallic SWCNTs, single-chirality species, and even their enantiomers have been achieved. This progress has promoted the property modulation of SWCNTs and the development of SWCNT-based optoelectronic devices. Here, the recent advances in the structure separation of SWCNTs are reviewed, from metallic/semiconducting SWCNTs, to single-chirality species, and to enantiomers by several typical separation techniques and the application of the corresponding sorted SWCNTs. Based on the separation procedure, efficiency, and scalability, as well as, the separable SWCNT species, purity, and quantity, the advantages and disadvantages of various separation techniques are compared. Combined with the requirements of SWCNT application, the challenges, prospects, and development direction of structure separation are further discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chirality separation of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is key to enabling applications in single photon sources, optoelectronic devices and bioimaging, and it generally requires multiple separation steps to obtain single chirality species with the desired purity. In this work, we report the use of a novel sodium hyodeoxycholate (SHC) surfactant for separation of single-chirality SWCNTs. The results demonstrated that chirality-selective adsorption and desorption of SWCNTs on a gel column can be achieved readily by modulating the concentrations of the SHC-based mixed surfactants. Through an optimized one-step procedure, single-chirality (6,5) SWCNTs were successfully separated, and the chirality purity was estimated to be 97% by using a spectroscopic approach, exceeding most reported purities for traditional surfactant-based one- or multiple-step separations. Due to the ultrahigh chirality resolution of the present method, the (6,5) SWCNTs can also be effectively separated from different SWCNT materials with various diameter or chirality distributions, even from materials containing very few (6,5) SWCNTs. The high-purity chirality separation demonstrated in this work lays an important foundation for the industrial production and applications of single-chirality SWCNTs. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]