Polymers and carbon nanotubes - Dimensionality, interactions and nanotechnology

Igal Szleifer, Rachel Yerushalmi-Rozen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

291 Scopus citations

Abstract

The behavior of mixtures of polymers with carbon nanotubes are reviewed. The use of polymers as dispersing agents of individual CNT is described in detail. Two groups of polymer-CNT systems are presented. One corresponds to the case in which the polymer-CNT interactions modify the electronic properties of the tubes. The second case corresponds to the polymers end-tethered to the tubes. This case results in changing the inter-tube interactions from strongly attractive to repulsive, through the entropic (steric) polymer induced repulsions. It is shown that the shape and dimensionality of the tubes determines the strength, range and type of inter-tube van der Waals attractions and polymer induced repulsions. The experimental verification of these ideas, and their implications for tube dispersions and separation are discussed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)7803-7818
Number of pages16
JournalPolymer
Volume46
Issue number19 SPEC. ISS.
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 8 2005

Funding

The authors thank Ms Ezhil Baskaran and Dr Rikkert Nap for providing some of the theoretical results presented in Figs. 14–18 . R. Y-R would like to thank the Israel Science Foundation, the Center of excellence program (grant No. 8003). I.S. acknowledges partial financial support from the National Science Foundation of the United States through grants CTS-0338377 and NIRT-0403903. R. Y-R and I.S are grateful to the BSF—United States–Israel Binational Science Foundation for supporting the cooperation leading to the development of the concepts presented in this work.

Keywords

  • Polymer composite materials
  • Polymer physical chemistry
  • Polymer science and technology

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Organic Chemistry
  • Polymers and Plastics
  • Materials Chemistry

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