Luminescent carbon nanoparticles separation and purification

Abstract

Nowadays luminescent carbon-based nanoparticles can be synthesized by a wide range of physical and chemical methods from a large variety of carbon-based sources. However, in most of the cases the product of synthesis is a complex mixture of compounds, which results in significant challenges in understanding the structure and optical properties of the reaction products. Consequently, a number of separation and purification methodologies have been developed to alleviate these challenges. In this review, we provide a detailed analysis of the current state of the art for methods of luminescent carbon nanoparticles separation and purification. We specifically target such methods as sucrose density gradient centrifugation, chromatography techniques, and electrophoresis because of their ability for fine separation of the reaction products with into a number of fractions. The aim of our comparative analysis is to help development of future strategies for reaction product separation and purification leading to a better understanding of carbon nanoparticles structure and luminescent mechanism as well as to underpin their applications.