Synergistic Effects of Carbohydrate Identity and Polymer Chain Length on Creating Glycopolymer-Wrapped Carbon Nanotubes

Dispersion of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with biopolymers in aqueous environments facilitates their potential biological and biomedical applications. Glycopolymers, biomimetic polymers with carbohydrate pendant groups, have great potential for dispersion of SWCNTs since they have greater structural tunability and targeted biological functions compared to natural polysaccharides. In this work, we investigated a small library of synthetic glycopolymers with monosaccharide and disaccharide groups for dispersion of SWCNTs via non-covalent complexation in aqueous condition. We found that glycopolymers can effectively stabilize SWCNTs to form water-soluble glycopolymer-wrapped SWCNT complexes, depending on the carbohydrate density and polymer chain length. This work demonstrates for the first time the synergistic effects of the identity of carbohydrate pendant groups and polymer chain length of glycopolymers on stabilizing SWCNTs in water.