Sidewall functionalization and purification of carbon nanotubes by solution-phase ozonolysis

IEC 32

Sarbajit Banerjee and Stanislaus S. Wong. Department of Chemistry, SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3400
Rational chemical functionalization of carbon nanotubes remains an important goal of nanoscale research. To reliably control the distribution and number of functional groups on the surfaces of single-walled carbon nanotubes, tubes were initially ozonized at -78°C, followed by treatment, in the solution phase, with various reagents, in independent runs, to generate a higher proportion of carboxylic acid/ester, ketone/aldhehyde, and alcohol moieties, respectively, on the nanotube surface. This protocol purifies nanotubes by removing amorphous carbon and metal impurities. More importantly, as had been theoretically predicted, the reaction sequence has also been found to ozonize (and hence, oxygenate) the sidewalls of these nanotubes, thereby broadening the chemical processability and intrinsic reactivity of these nanomaterials.