A new approach for polytriarylamine (PTAA)assisted selective dispersion for single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) in a toluene solution has been developed. The triarylamine-based conjugated polymers are able to selectively wrap the SWNTs with specific chiral indices depending on their backbone structures (e.g., PTAA 12 , PTAA 12 -P, and PTAA 12 -BP) and side-chain functionality (e.g., PTAA 6 , PTAA 6 -alt-PTAA, and PTAA 12 -alt-PTAA). PTAA 12 exhibits highly selective wrapping for the (6,5) chirality from CoMoCAT (catalytic processes) SWNTs but low selectivity in a dispersion of HiPCO (high-pressure carbon monoxide) SWNTs. Therefore, the selection for HiPCO SWNTs has been further improved via PTAA 12 -alt-PTAA wrapping with alternating side chains and mainly exhibits a high affinity to (6,5) SWNTs with high chiral angles (≥24.5°). The wrapping conformation and binding energy of the polymer/(6,5) SWNTs were studied via molecular modeling, and the simulated results are in good agreement with the experimental data for the selective dispersion of (6,5) SWNTs.

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