Interaction of thermally pretreated carbon nanomaterials with water vapor

We used temperature-programmed desorption-mass spectrometry to verify whether low-molecular-weight products can form by reacting thermally pretreated single-walled and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs and MWNTs, respectively) with water vapor. The reactivity of MWNTs toward water is similar to the reactivity of graphite, whereas acid-oxidized SWNTs behave like polymerized C60 fullerene. We think the main factors influencing the reactivity are molecular surface curvature and the presence of pyrolyzable defect groups, which create highly strained bonds upon their elimination.