Purification and alignment of arc-synthesis single-walled carbon nanotube bundles

We report here a scalable method for purification and alignment of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) in an aqueous solution. Arc-synthesis soot containing SWNTs is first treated with a concentrated nitric acid. After removal of most of the impurities and water, macroscopic and well-aligned SWNT bundles up to several centimeters long are formed in a rotary evaporator. Alignment of the SWNT bundles is ascribed to the liquid flow induced by rotary evaporation and van der Waals interactions among the bundles. The aligned SWNT bundles are further purified by ultrasonic Soxhlet extraction and annealing.