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Updated: May 30, 2026
Functionalization of Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes with Thermo-reversible Block Copolymers and Characterization by Small-angle Neutron Scattering
Published on: June 1, 2016
One-step functionalization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes with Ag/polymer under γ-ray irradiation
Wei-Tai Wu1, Lei Shi, Yusong Wang
1Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Structure Research Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230026, People's Republic of China. Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
We reported an easy strategy of using γ-ray irradiation to functionalize multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) without the use of aggressive acid treatment, all in a single processing step. In this paper, we tried to decorate MWCNTs with Ag nanoparticles relying on covalently bonded polymers, via one-step covalent grafting of the polymer to the surface of MWCNTs, and simultaneous reducing of Ag(+) ions to Ag which are then efficiently anchored onto the MWCNTs. Herein, the polymer involved was the commercially available polymer poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and two of its derivatives, polyvinylacetone with ketalization degree D(H) = 0.22 and 0.53. It is envisioned that this simple but efficient method could be extended to fabricate other CNT-based hybrids for both theoretical study and applications in biological and technological fields.
