A method of functionalization of multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT) at room temperature using dry ozone gas is described. The resulting MWNT were characterized by Fourier transform infrared, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. Combined to these analyses and solubility in liquids, it could be concluded that the dry ozone gas exposure introduces polar functional groups such as carboxylic groups to MWNT similar to acidic modification of MWNT. Particularly, the stable dispersion of MWNT in water after ozone treatment above a critical level could be obtained, implying potential bio-application. The hydrophilic functional groups on the MWNT introduced by ozone oxidation were helpful in improving the interaction with functional groups in PA6 such as -NH2 and -CONH- resulting in improved mechanical properties.

Recently, the use of thermal conductive polymeric composites is growing up, where the polymers filled with the thermally conductive fillers effectively dissipate heat generated from electronic components. Therefore, the management of heat is directly related to the lifetime of electronic devices. For the purpose of the improvement of thermal conductivity of composites, fillers with excellent thermally conductive behavior are commonly used. Thermally conductive particles filled polymer composites have advantages due to their easy processibility, low cost, and durability to the corrosion. Especially, carbon-based 1-dimensional nanomaterials such as carbon nanotube (CNT) and carbon nanofiber (CNF) have gained much attention for their excellent thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance and low thermal expansion coefficient than the metals. This paper aims to review the research trends in the improvement of thermal conductivity of the carbon-based materials filled polymer composites.

The composites of alginate, carbon nanotube, and iron(III) oxide were prepared for the removal of heavy metal in aqueous pollutant. Both alginate and carbon nanotube were used as an adsorbent material and iron oxide was introduced for the easy recovery after removal of heavy metal to eliminate the secondary pollution. The morphology of composites was investigated by FE-SEM showing the carbon nanotubes coated with alginate and the iron oxide dispersed in the alginate matrix. The ferromagnetic properties of composites were shown by including iron(III) oxide additive. The copper ion removal was investigated with ICP AES. The copper ion removal efficiency increased greatly over 60% by using alginate-carbon nanotube composites.

In this work, the effect of aminized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (NH-MWNTs) on the mechanical interfacial properties of epoxy nanocomposites was investigated by means of fracture toughness, critical stress intensity factor (KIC), and impact strength testing, and their morphology was examined by scanning electron microscope (SEM). It was found that the incorporation of amine groups onto MWNTs was confirmed by the FT-IR and Raman spectra. The mechanical interfacial properties of the epoxy nanocomposites were remarkably improved with increasing the NH-MWNT content. It was probably attributed to the strong physical interaction between amine groups of NH-MWNTs and epoxide groups of epoxy resins. The SEM micrographs showed that NH-MWNTs were uniformly embed and bonded with epoxy resins, resulted in the prevention of the deformation and crack propagation in the NH-MWNTs/epoxy nanocomposites.

Carbon-nanotube-embedded bismuth telluride (CNT/) matrix composites were fabricated by a powder metallurgy process. Composite powders, whereby 5 vol.% of functionalized CNTs were homogeneously mixed with alloying powders, were successfully synthesized by using high-energy ball milling process. The powders were consolidated into bulk CNT/ composites by spark plasma sintering process at for 10 min. The fabricated composites showed the uniform mixing and homogeneous dispersion of CNTs in the matrix. Seebeck coefficient of CNT/ composites reveals that the composite has n-type semiconducting characteristics with values ranging to with increasing temperature. Furthermore, the significant reduction in thermal conductivity has been clearly observed in the composites. The results showed that CNT addition to thermoelectric materials could be useful method to obtain high thermoelectric performance.

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) particles deposited on different quantitative Fe-treated carbon nanotube (CNT) composites with high photocatalytic activity of visible light were prepared by a modified sol-gel method using TNB as a titanium source. The composites were characterized by BET, XRD, SEM, TEM and EDX, which showed that the BET surface area was related to the adsorption capacity for each composite. From TEM images, surface and structural characterization of for the CNT surface had been carried out. The XRD results showed that the Fe-ACF/TiO2 composite mostly contained an anatase structure with a Fe-mediated compound. EDX results showed the presence of C, O, and Ti with Fe peaks in the Fe-CNT/TiO2 composites. The photocatalytic activity of the composites was examined by degradation of methylene blue (MB) in aqueous solution under visible light, which was found to depend on the amount of CNT. The highest photocatalytic activity among the different composites was related to the optimal content of CNT in the Fe-CNT/TiO2 composites. In particular, the photocatalytic activity of the Fe-CNT/TiO2 composites under visible light was better than that of the CNT/TiO2 composites due to the introduction of Fe particles.

The characteristics of all polymer composites containing carbon materials are determined by four factors: component properties, composition, structure and interfacial interactions. The most important filler characteristics are particle size, size distribution, specific surface area and particle shape. As a consequence, in this paper we discuss the aspects of the mechanical, electrical and thermal properties of composites with different fillers of carbon black, carbon nanotube (CNT), graphene and graphite and focus on the relationship between factors and properties, as mentioned above. Accordingly, we fabricate rubber composites that contain various carbon materials in carbon black-based and silica based-SBR matrixes with dual phase fillers and use scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, a rhometer, an Instron tensile machine, and a thermal conductivity analyzer to evaluate composites' mechanical, fatigue, thermal, and electronic properties. In mechanical properties, hardness and 300%-modulus of graphene-composite are sharply increased in all cases due to the larger specific surface. Also, it has been found that the thermal conductivity of the CNT-composite is higher than that of any of the other composites and that the composite with graphene has the best electrical properties.

Transparent conductive films of single wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) were prepared by spray coating method. The effect of acid treatment on the SWCNT films was investigated. The field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) shows that acid treatment can remove dispersing agent. The electrical and optical properties of acid-treated films were enhanced compared with those of as deposited SWCNT films. Nitric acid (HNO3), sulfuric acid (H2SO4), nitric acid:sulfuric acid (3:1) were used for post treatment. Although all solutions reduced sheet resistance of CNT films, nitric acid can improve electrical characteristics efficiently. During acid treatment, transmittance was increased continuously with time. But the sheet resistance was decreased for the first 20 minutes and then increased again. Post-treated SWCNT films were transparent (85%) in the visible range with sheet resistance of about 162Ω/sq. In this paper we discuss simple fabrication, which is suitable for different types of large-scale substrates and simple processes to improve properties of SWCNT films.

Si nanowire/multiwalled carbon nanotube nanocomposite arrays were synthesized. Vertically aligned Si nanowire arrays were fabricated by Ag nanodendrite-assisted wet chemical etching of n-type wafers using HF/AgNO3 solution. The composite structure was synthesized by formation of a sheath of carbon multilayers on a Si nanowire template surface through a thermal CVD process under various conditions. The results of Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and high resolution transmission electron microcopy demonstrate that the obtained nanocomposite has a Si nanowire core/carbon nanotube shell structure. The remarkable feature of the proposed method is that the vertically aligned Si nanowire was encapsulated with a multiwalled carbon nanotube without metal catalysts, which is important for nanodevice fabrication. It can be expected that the introduction of Si nanowires into multiwalled carbon nanotubes may significantly alter their electronic and mechanical properties, and may even result in some unexpected material properties. The proposed method possesses great potential for fabricating other semiconductor/CNT nanocomposites.

We investigated the effect of diameter and content of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the physical properties of styrenebutadiene rubber (SBR)/CNTs nanocomposites. CNTs-reinforced SBR nanocomposites were prepared by the melt mixing process. CNTs with different diameters were synthesized by the chemical vapor deposition method (CVD). In this work, the mechanical property and other physical properties of SBR/CNTS nanocomposites were discussed as a function of the content and diameter of CNTs.

We investigated the effects of Co doping on the NO gas sensing characteristics of ZnO-carbon nanotube (ZnO-CNT) layered composites fabricated by coaxial coating of single-walled CNTs with ZnO using pulsed laser deposition. Structural examinations clearly confirmed a distinct nanostructure of the CNTs coated with ZnO nanoparticles of an average diameter as small as 10 nm and showed little influence of doping 1 at.% Co into ZnO on the morphology of the ZnO-CNT composites. It was found from the gas sensing measurements that 1 at.% Co doping into ZnO gave rise to a significant improvement in the response of the ZnO-CNT composite sensor to NO gas exposure. In particular, the Co-doped ZnO-CNT composite sensor shows a highly sensitive and fast response to NO gas at relatively low temperatures and even at low NO concentrations. The observed significant improvement of the NO gas sensing properties is attributed to an increase in the specific surface area and the role as a catalyst of the doped Co elements. These results suggest that Co-doped ZnOCNT composites are suitable for use as practical high-performance NO gas sensors.

The field emitters were fabricated by screen-printing of carbon nanotube paste, and their emission stabilities were evaluated. It was found that the emission stability measured in a sealed device is much higher than that measured in a vacuum chamber in spite of similar pressure. This was because oxygen gas was scarcely remained in the sealed device, while the gas is continuously supplied into the vacuum chamber during the stability measurement. It was found that the plasma treatment etched the protruded CNTs, resulting in the uniform height of CNT tips. As a result, the stability was increased remarkably. It was also found that the stability of CNT paste emitter was improved by electrical aging and that the optimum condition for the aging was varied with the size of emitter.

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) were used as a catalyst support where catalytically active Pd and Pt metalparticles decorated the outside of the external CNT walls. In this study, Pd and Pt nanoparticles supportedon HNO3-treated CNT were prepared by microwave-assisted heating of the polyol process using PdCl2 andH2PtCl6•6H2O precursors, respectively, and were then characterized by SEM, TEM, and Raman. Ramanspectroscopy showed that the acid treated CNT had a higher intensity ratio of ID/IG compared to that of non-treated CNT, indicating the formation of defects or functional groups on CNT after chemical oxidation.Microwave irradiation for total two minutes resulted in the formation of Pd and Pt nanoparticles on the acidtreated CNT. The sizes of Pd and Pt nanoparticles were found to be less than 10nm and 3nm, respectively.Furthermore, the SnO2 films doped with CNT decorated by Pd and Pt nanoparticles were prepared, and thenthe NO2 gas response of these sensor films was evaluated under 1~5ppm NO2 concentration at 200oC. It wasfound that the sensing property of the SnO2 film sensor on NO2 gas was greatly improved by the addition ofCNT-supported Pd and Pt nanoparticles.

We measured the non-carbon content of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in SWCNT soot using thermogravimetric analysis. The weight increased percentage by the oxidation of metal in the raw soot is well obtained by TGA graph which was confirmed with ICP-AES, XRD, and XPS. This work will be very useful for the purity precise evaluation of SWCNT with UN-vis-NIR spectroscopy.

We measured the degree of macrodispersion of the various single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) using UV-VIS-NIR absorption spectroscopy. CNTs were dispersed with SDS of 2 wt % in deionized water using the homogenizer and then were further centrifugated at 6000 g for 10 min. The degree of macrodispersion, expressed by Dm(λ)=Aa(λ)/Ab(λ)*100 (%), where λ is the wavelength and Aa(λ) and Ab(λ) are the absorbance of the sample after and before centrifugation, respectively. In the case of MWCNTs, we evaluated the degree of macrodispersion by the average degree of macrodispersion (Dm(λ)) between 1000 and 1200 nm. The degree of macrodispersion of SWCNTs was evaluated at the wavelength in which van Hove singularity-related transition regions were excluded, i.e., the range was chosen between E11S and E22S peaks. We have estimated six samples with the same method. The standard deviation of each sample was lower than 5. Therefore, we presented a reliable evaluation method for the macrodispersion of CNTs for standardization.

We propose an evaluation method of the relative content of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) in SWCNT soot synthesized by arc discharge using UV-VIS-NIR absorption spectroscopy. In this method, we consider the absorbance of semiconducting and metallic SWCNTs together to calculate the relative content of SWCNTs with respect to a highly purified reference. Our method provides the more reliable and realistic evaluation of SWCNT content with respect to the whole carbonaceous content than the previously reported method.

The NO gas sensing properties of ZnO-carbon nanotube (ZnO-CNT) composites fabricated by the coaxial coating of single-walled CNTs with ZnO were investigated using pulsed laser deposition. Upon examination, the morphology and crystallinity of the ZnO-CNT composites showed that CNTs were uniformly coated with polycrystalline ZnO with a grain size as small as 5-10 nm. Gas sensing measurements clearly indicated a remarkable enhancement of the sensitivity of ZnO-CNT composites for NO gas compared to that of ZnO films while maintaining the strong sensing stability of the composites, properties that CNT-based sensing materials do not have. The enhanced gas sensing properties of the ZnO-CNT composites are attributed to an increase in the surface adsorption area of the ZnO layer via the coating by CNTs of a high surface-to-volume ratio structure. These results suggest that the ZnO-CNT composite is a promising template for novel solid-state semiconducting gas sensors.

Carbon nanotube (CNT)/ composites were synthesized to enhance the hydrogen storage properties. The emphasis was made on the effect of different shortening methods of CNTs on the open-tip structure and the resulting properties. The use of open CNTs as a starting material resulted in an enhanced hydrogen properties of CNT/ composites. Among the employed methods for the shortening of CNTs, wet milling using ethanol was the most efficient, while ultrasonic acid treatment or thermal decomposition resulted in a less hydrogen storage capacity.

The effects of the field emission property in relation to the surface morphology and adhesion force were investigated. The single-wall-nanotube-based cathode was obtained by use of an in-situ arc discharge synthesis method, a screen-printing method and a spray method. The morphologies of the formed emitter layers were very different. The emission stability and uniformity were dramatically improved by employing an in-situ arc discharge synthesis method. In this study, it was confirmed that the current stability and uniformity of the field emission of the cathode depend on the surface morphology and adhesion force of the emitters. The current stability of the field emission device was also studied through an electrical aging process by varying the current and electric field.

A simple method to deposit carbon nanotube films uniformly on large area substrates using an arc discharge method is reported in this paper. The arc discharge method was modified to deposit carbon nanotube films in situ on the substrates. The substrates were scanned several times over the arcing point for a uniform film thickness. Deposition was carried out under variable dc bias conditions at 600 torr of H2 gas. The thickness uniformity of the single-wall carbon nanotube films as characterized by a four-point probe was within 30% deviation. The morphology and crystal quality of the single-wall carbon nanotube film were also characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy.