Helical wrapping by conjugated polymer has been demonstrated as a powerful tool for the sorting of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) according to their electronic type, chiral index, and even handedness. However, a method of one-step extraction of left-handed (M) and right-handed (P) semiconducting SWCNTs (s-SWCNTs) with subsequent cleavage of the polymer has not yet been published. In this work, we designed and synthesized one pair of acid cleavable polyfluorenes with defined chirality for handedness separation of s-SWCNTs from as-produced nanotubes. Each monomer contains a chiral center on the fluorene backbone in the 9-position, and the amino and carbonyl groups in the 2- and 7-positions maintain the head-to-tail regioselective polymerization resulting in polyimines with strictly all-(R) or all-(S) configuration. The obtained chiral polymers exhibit a strong recognition ability toward left- or right-handed s-SWCNTs from commercially available CoMoCAT SWCNTs with a sorting process requiring only bath sonication and centrifugation. Interestingly, the remaining polymer on each single nanotube, which helps to prevent aggregation, does not interfere with the circular dichroism signals from the nanotube at all. Therefore, we observed all four interband transition peaks (E₁₁, E₂₂, E₃₃, E₄₄) in the circular dichroism (CD) spectra of the still wrapped optically enriched left-handed and right-handed (6,5) SWCNTs in toluene. Binding energies obtained from molecular dynamics simulations were consistent with our experimental results and showed a significant preference for one specific handedness from each chiral polymer. Moreover, the imine bonds along the polymer chains enable the release of the nanotubes upon acid treatment. After s-SWNT separation, the polymer can be decomposed into monomers and be cleanly removed under mild acidic conditions, yielding dispersant-free handedness sorted s-SWNTs. The monomers can be almost quantitatively recovered to resynthesize the chiral polymer. This approach enables high selective isolation of polymer-free s-SWNT enantiomers for their further applications in carbon nanotube (CNT) devices.

中文翻译：

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酸可裂解手性聚芴对半导电单壁碳纳米管的对映体分离

已经证明，通过共轭聚合物进行螺旋缠绕可以作为根据单壁碳纳米管的电子类型，手性指数甚至是惯用性对其进行分选的强大工具。但是，左手（M）和右手（P半导体SWCNT（s-SWCNT）及其随后的裂解反应尚未公开。在这项工作中，我们设计并合成了一对具有确定的手性的可酸裂解的聚芴，用于从生产的纳米管中分离出s-SWCNTs的手性。每个单体在9位上的芴骨架上均具有一个手性中心，并且2位和7位上的氨基和羰基保持头尾相接的区域选择性聚合，从而产生具有严格全-（R）或-清一色（小号） 配置。所获得的手性聚合物对市售CoMoCAT SWCNT的左手或右手s-SWCNT表现出很强的识别能力，其分选过程仅需进行浴超声处理和离心即可。有趣的是，有助于防止聚集的每个单个纳米管上的剩余聚合物根本不会干扰来自纳米管的圆形二色性信号。因此，我们观察到所有四个带间跃迁峰（E ₁₁，E ₂₂，E ₃₃，E ₄₄）在甲苯中仍包裹着光学富集的左旋和右旋（6,5）SWCNT的圆二色性（CD）光谱。从分子动力学模拟获得的结合能与我们的实验结果一致，并且显示出对每种手性聚合物的一种特定手性的显着偏好。而且，沿着聚合物链的亚胺键使得能够在酸处理后释放纳米管。s-SWNT分离后，可将聚合物分解成单体，并在弱酸性条件下干净地除去，得到不含分散剂的灵敏性分类的s-SWNT。几乎可以定量回收单体以重新合成手性聚合物。这种方法能够高度选择性地分离不含聚合物的s-SWNT对映异构体，以进一步应用于碳纳米管（CNT）装置。