ECS Meeting Abstracts, 11(MA2022-01), p. 835-835, 2022
DOI: 10.1149/ma2022-0111835mtgabs
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The recent experimental discovery of fullertubes has opened the door to fundamental studies in carbon nanomaterials. Fullertubes, comprised of half-fullerene end caps connected with a single-walled carbon nanotube belt, show evidence of the exciting properties of carbon nanotubes with the advantage of a defined, reproducible structure. However, large-scale quantities of these hybrid materials have yet to be realized due to their low abundance in electric arc extracts. Currently, fullertube isomers are isolated in two steps. In the first step, spheroidal fullerenes are reacted with aminopropanol and transferred to the aqueous layer in a separatory funnel. The unreacted fullertubes remain in the organic layer for subsequent HPLC purification. In this presentation, we introduce an intermediate step that exploits solubility differences between fullertubes and lower molecular weight fullerenes, further enriching their concentrations prior to HPLC separation.