Grafting of thermoresponsive polymer from the surface of functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes via atom transfer radical polymerization

• 来源期刊: 科学通报（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2008,（15）
• 页码范围: 2297-2306
• 页数: 10页
• 语种: 英文
• DOI: 10.1007/s11434-008-0317-2

摘要

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes were oxidized with concentrated HNOz and H2SO4 to introduce carboxylic groups onto carbon nanotubes surfaces. The oxidized carbon nanotubes were reacted subsequently with thionyl chloride and 2-Hydroxylethyl-2'-bromoisobutyrate, producing MWNT-based macroinitiators, MWNT-Br, for the atom transfer radical polymerization of (N-isopropylacrylamide). FTIR, XPS, 1H NMR, Raman and TGA were used to characterize the resulting products and to determine the content of the water-soluble poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) chains in the product. The MWNTs grafted with PNIPAM chains have good solubility in distilled water; THF and CHCl3. TEM images of the samples provide direct evidence for the formation of a nanostructure that MWNTs coated with polymer layer. The produced MWNT-g-PNIPAM has a PNIPAM shell, which is very sensitive to the change of temperature.This method would open a door for the fabrication of novel functional carbon nanotube-based nanomaterials or nanodevices with designable structure and tailor-made properties.