Tannic acid stabilizes carbon nanotubes in water

ENVR 250

Ni Liu1, Daohui Lin, lindaohui@zju.edu.cn1, and Baoshan Xing2. (1) Department of Environmental Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310028, China, (2) Department of Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Stockbridge Hall, Amherst, MA 01003
To understand the fate of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in natural aqueous environments, multi-walled CNTs (MWCNTs) with diameters of < 10, 10-20, 20-40, 40-60, and 60-100 nm were used to investigate their suspending behavior in tannic acid (TA) solution with sonication. The suspendability of MWCNTs (200 mg/L) sharply increased with increasing TA at low concentrations and reached equilibrium with the initial TA concentrations at 20-50 mg/L. TA adsorption on MWCNTs proceeded progressively from submonolayer to multilayer with a turning point at TA concentration of 20–50 mg/L. MWCNT40 was the most suspendable among the five MWCNTs. Steric repulsion and electrostatic repulsion between individual CNTs regulated the stabilization.
 

Environmental Behavior and Fate of Manufactured Nanomaterials
6:00 PM-8:00 PM, Wednesday, April 9, 2008 Morial Convention Center -- Hall A, Poster

Division of Environmental Chemistry

The 235th ACS National Meeting, New Orleans, LA, April 6-10, 2008