Single-walled carbon nanotube-templated crystallization of H2SO4: direct evidence for protonation

Wei Zhou; Paul A Heiney; Hua Fan; Richard E Smalley; John E Fischer

doi:10.1021/ja043131z

Single-walled carbon nanotube-templated crystallization of H2SO4: direct evidence for protonation

J Am Chem Soc. 2005 Feb 16;127(6):1640-1. doi: 10.1021/ja043131z.

Authors

Wei Zhou¹, Paul A Heiney, Hua Fan, Richard E Smalley, John E Fischer

Affiliation

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.

PMID: 15700989
DOI: 10.1021/ja043131z

Abstract

Liquid anhydrous sulfuric acid forms molecular "shells" wrapped around single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). Temperature-dependent X-ray scattering from aligned acid-swollen fibers shows that crystallization of the bulklike acid surrounding the structured shells is templated by the aligned SWNTs, while the structured shells remain partly ordered, at least for temperatures from 100 to 500 K. The (2 0 0) or ( 0 2) planes of the templated H2SO4 crystallites are parallel to the nanotube axes. This provides solid evidence for the direct protonation of SWNT since the molecules are terminated by hydrogen bonds.