Functionalization of carbon nanotube and applications

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© The Author(s) 2016.Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have unique structures, comprising diameters of few nanometers and length of several hundred nanometers, which provides outstanding mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties. Since their discovery in 1991, CNTs have received much attention and are a worldwide research subject due to their wide range of applications as biosensors, drug delivery, electrochemistry, nanoelectronics, superconductors, nanowires, graphene nanoribbons, nanocomposite materials, and so on. The functionalization treatments can enhance the usual CNT poor dispersion in solvents and improve their interactions with other materials, improving their technological application. Then, carbon nanotube is an extremely hot topic, and every day new research papers are published on this subject. This book contains complete and current reviews on CNT topics, such as synthesis, characterization, and application of functionalized CNTs. The characterization of functionalized CNTs is extremely important for determining the real physicochemical properties of the material obtained after functionalization treatments. However, this characterization is rarely addressed in books or review articles. Generally, the functionalization reviews are too wide-ranging, discussing the functionalization of various materials (e.g., nanomaterials), or too specific, analyzing only one functionalization agent (with some specific chemical group, e.g.). This book, however, proposes to discuss the functionalization of one of the most widely used nanomaterials in recent years: carbon nanotube. Thus, the reader will find information on CNT functionalization, using several functionalization agents, in the same book.

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