A New Model for Quantifying the Extent of Interaction between Soluble Polyphenylene-Vinylenes and Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes in Solvent Dispersions

The ability to disperse and, hence, manipulate single-walled carbon nanotubes is critical for their use in organic photovoltaic devices, either as a transparent electrode or as an electron acceptor material. We present data to quantify the physical interaction of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with two soluble phenylene vinylene conjugated polymers, poly[2'-methoxy-5-(2'-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] and poly(2,5-di(hexyloxy)cyanoterephthalylidene). We provide static quenching constants, associated with polymer-SWCNT complexation, as a weight percent ratio of polymer to nanotubes for different solvent and polymer concentration conditions. Optimization of conditions for nanotube dispersion using a given polymer can now be predicted, and furthermore, we can describe a technique allowing for enhanced relative comparisons of polymer materials for nanotube dispersion.