Self-assembling rod-coil copolymers for carbon nanotube sorting and the fabrication of carbon nanotube films
AssigneeWisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
InventorsPadma Gopalan, Michael Scott Arnold, Stephanie Oliveras Santos, Songying Li
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods of sorting carbon nanotubes and methods of forming films of aligned carbon nanotubes using rod-coil copolymers are provided. The rod-coil copolymers have a tri-block or di-block architecture and include a conjugated polymer segment (“rod” segment) that binds the copolymer to the carbon nanotubes via pi-pi interactions and a non-conjugated polymer segment (“coil” segment) that aids with the sorting and dispersion of the carbon nanotubes in solution and/or controls the spacing of the carbon nanotubes in films made therefrom.
Claims16
A method of separating semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes from a starting carbon nanotube sample comprising a mixture of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes and metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes, the method comprising:
- combining the carbon nanotube sample and a rod-coil copolymer in an organic solvent, wherein the rod-coil copolymer comprises a conjugated polymer segment that adheres to the surface of the carbon nanotubes via pi-pi interactions;
- and a non-conjugated polymer segment, whereby the rod-coil copolymer preferentially adheres to and disperses the semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes, relative to the metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes, in the organic solvent;
- and
- separating the dispersed single-walled carbon nanotubes from the undispersed single-walled carbon nanotubes to obtain a purified carbon nanotube dispersion having a higher ratio of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes to metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes than the starting carbon nanotube sample.
A method of forming a carbon nanotube film, the method comprising:
- forming a non-aqueous dispersion of rod-coil copolymer-coated carbon nanotubes in an organic solvent, the rod-coil copolymer comprising a conjugated polymer segment that adheres to surfaces of the carbon nanotubes via pi-pi interactions and a non-conjugated polymer segment;
- flowing the non-aqueous dispersion across a surface of a substrate along a flow direction, wherein the rod-coil copolymer-coated carbon nanotubes are deposited on the surface with an alignment along the flow direction to form a coating of aligned rod-coil copolymer-coated carbon nanotubes;
- and
- drying the coating to form a film of aligned carbon nanotubes on the surface of the substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.