Tuning the Carbon Nanotube Selectivity: Optimizing Reduction Potentials and Distortion Angles in Perylenediimides

Different water-soluble perylenediimides (PDIs) have been used to individualize and stabilize single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in aqueous media. A key feature of the PDIs is that they can be substituted at the bay positions via the addition of two and/or four bromines. This enables control over structural and electronic PDI characteristics, which prompted us to conduct comparative assays with focus on SWCNTs’ chirality and charge transfer. Electrochemical, microscopic, and spectroscopic experiments were used to investigate the SWCNT chiral selectivity of PDIs, on the one hand, and charge-transfer reactions between SWCNTs and PDIs, on the other hand.