Journal Article

Highly selective dispersion of single-walled carbon nanotubes using aromatic polymers

Doig, James, Nicholas, Robin J., Hwang, Jeong-Yuan, Nish, Adrian

2007

Overview

Solubilizing and purifying carbon nanotubes remains one of the foremost technological hurdles in their investigation and application. We report a dramatic improvement in the preparation of single-walled carbon nanotube solutions based on the ability of specific aromatic polymers to efficiently disperse certain nanotube species with a high degree of selectivity. Evidence of this is provided by optical absorbance and photoluminescence excitation spectra, which show suspensions corresponding to up to ∼60% relative concentration of a single species of isolated nanotubes with fluorescence quantum yields of up to 1.5%. Different polymers show the ability to discriminate between nanotube species in terms of either diameter or chiral angle. Modelling suggests that rigid-backbone polymers form ordered molecular structures surrounding the nanotubes with n -fold symmetry determined by the tube diameter.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: Carbon / Chemistry and Materials Science / Colloids - chemistry / Crystallization - methods / Fluorescence / Graphene / Hydrocarbons, Aromatic - chemistry / Macromolecular Substances - chemistry / Materials Science / Materials Testing / Molecular Conformation / Nanotechnology / Nanotechnology - methods / Nanotechnology and Microengineering / Nanotubes, Carbon - chemistry / Nanotubes, Carbon - ultrastructure / Particle Size / Physical properties / Polymers / Polymers - chemistry / Spectrum analysis / Surfactants