The discovery of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) revealed that this new form of carbon can challenge traditional materials on many fronts. Remarkable electrical, thermal, mechanical and optical properties of individual CNTs have attracted significant attention, and so scientists have begun to consider their implementation in everyday life. Unfortunately, CNT aggregates are composed of a wide range of CNT types, which has a strongly negative influence on the observed performance of macroscale devices made from them. Recently, however, it has become evident that different CNT types can be sorted according to length, diameter, electrical character, chiral angle and even handedness, which reignited interest in them. This review aims to demonstrate the state-of-the-art of all the mainstream methods of sorting CNTs (preferential synthesis, selective destruction, (di)electrophoresis, ultracentrifugation, chromatography, (co)polymer isolation and aqueous two-phase extraction). It is concluded with an overview of already tested applications using sorted CNTs and gives an overlook of the field for the future.

中文翻译：

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迈向单手性碳纳米管：单壁碳纳米管分选的进展综述

碳纳米管（CNT）的发现表明，这种新形式的碳可以在许多方面挑战传统材料。各个CNT的显着电学，热学，机械和光学性能已引起广泛关注，因此科学家开始考虑将其用于日常生活中。不幸的是，CNT聚集体由多种类型的CNT组成，这对观察到的由它们制成的大型器件的性能产生了极大的负面影响。然而，近来已经变得明显的是，可以根据长度，直径，电特性，手性角甚至均匀性来分类不同的CNT类型，这引起了人们对它们的兴趣。这篇评论旨在证明所有主流的CNT分类方法（优先合成，选择性破坏，（di）电泳，超速离心，色谱，（共）聚合物分离和水两相萃取）。最后，概述了已经使用分拣的CNT进行过测试的应用程序，并对未来的领域进行了展望。