Preparation of short and water-dispersible carbon nanotubes by solid-state cutting

摘要

A new approach is reported to cut conventionally long(>10 mu m)and entangled carbon nanotubes(CNTs)to those with short lengths(~300 nm)and excellent dispersion in water and ethanol.This was achieved by depositing Fe2O3 nanoparticles on CNTs first and then inducing a chemical reaction between them at a temperature of 850°C.The consumption of carbon during the reduction of Fe2O3 with CNTs was responsible for the cutting.Fourier transform infrared,X-ray photoelectron and Raman spectroscopies demonstrated that the cutting had induced little impact on the intrinsic graphitic structure.The present cutting approach based on the localized reaction in solid-state has advantages of producing short CNTs with a narrow length distribution,high dispersion,and a low material loss over previous ones based on gaseous or liquid-state reactions,and would have wide applications.