High-yield and chirality-selective isolation of single-walled carbon nanotubes using conjugated polymers and small molecular chaperones

Abstract

-6,6'-(2,2'-bipyridine)) polymer increased the concentration of the harvested SWCNTs by an order of magnitude while maintaining near-monochiral purity of the materials. The conducted modeling revealed that the presence of these additives facilitated the folding of conjugated polymers around (6,5) SWCNTs, leading to a substantial increase in the concentration and quality of the SWCNT suspension. The obtained results lay the foundation for the widescale implementation of the CPE of usually scarcely available chirality-defined SWCNTs owing to the molecular chaperones expediting the folding of the conjugated polymers.