Lipophilic guanosine derivatives as carbon nanotube dispersing agents

Two different lipophilic guanosine derivatives (LipoGs) have been used for the disaggregation of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in chloroform. UV–vis–NIR spectrophotometry, Raman spectroscopy and NIR-photoluminescence measurements as well as AFM and SEM highlight a well debundling of SWCNTs while fluorescence measurements show the adsorption of LipoGs onto SWCNT surface. The ability of LipoGs to disperse SWCNTs has been demonstrated to depend on their tendency to self-assemble into ribbon-like supramolecular structures. In turn, the super-organization of these supramolecular structures appears to control the homogeneity of the dispersion.