Sorting and decoration of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes via the quaternization reaction
Ying Luo1, Yuemaierjiang Maimaiti1, Xieraili Maimaitiyiming1
1Key Laboratory of Energy Materials Chemistry, Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Materials, Autonomous Region, Institute of Applied Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Xinjiang University Urumqi 830046 Xinjiang PR China 380731363@qq.com.
Abstract:
A study for the selective separation and functionalization of alcohol-soluble semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (sc-SWCNTs) is carried out by polymer main-chain engineering. Introducing tertiary amine groups endows the functionalized sc-SWCNTs with alcohol-soluble properties and introducing the pyrimidine rings allows to increase the selective purity of sc-SWCNTs. In this study, a series of poly[(9,9-dioctylfluorene)-2,7-(9,9-bis(3'-(N,N-dimethylamino)propyl)-fluorene)] -alt-[2-methylpyrimidine-2,7-(9,9-dioctylfluorene)] (PFPy) are used for the selective dispersion of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes, where n and m are the composition ratio of the copolymer. When m = n, the effective isolation of sc-SWCNTs with purity greater than 99% is achieved. The alcohol-soluble sc-SWCNTs with a diameter in the range of 1.1-1.4 nm are obtained through designing reasonable molecular structure. Moreover, the particular preference of PFPy (m = n) for sc-SWCNTs was studied via density functional theory (DFT) calculations and it was proved to be a promising method for the separation and functionalization of sc-SWCNTs.
