The significant role of carboxylated carbonaceous fragments in the electrochemistry of carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been widely employed as electrode materials in diverse branches of electrochemistry, which are claimed to display dramatically improved electrochemical behaviour compared to the conventional carbon materials. But a series of recent publications have demonstrated that the electrocatalysis of CNTs might be due to the presence of some impurities, such as metallic catalysts, nanographitic particles and amorphous carbon. For this reason, CNTs are usually purified or treated with nitric acid or nitric and sulphuric acid prior to their versatile applications. However, the strong acidic and oxidative conditions are so aggressive that serious erosion of the tube structures has inevitably taken place, which creates defects on the sidewalls and gives rise to numerous molecular byproducts, commonly referred as carboxylated carbonaceous fragments (CCFs). The adsorption of CCFs on CNTs greatly alters the surface conditions of CNTs which may significantly impact on their electrochemical properties. To this end, we wish to disclose whether the electrocatalysis of the nitric acid purified CNTs is affected by the adsorption of the CCFs. Ascorbic acid (AA) and β-nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) as selected as the targeting benchmarks that are known to be insensitive to the presence of metallic impurities, which may guarantee the preclusion of the promoting contributions from the metallic catalysts resident in CNTs. We have demonstrated that the electrocatalytic activities of the CNTs are actually dominated by the adsorbed CCFs generated during the acidic pre-treatment. After removal of the CCFs by base rinse, the electrocatalytic properties of CNTs are greatly deteriorated and degraded to the level similar to the conventional graphite powder. We believe this finding is particularly meaningful to uncover the mysterious electrocatalysis of CNTs.

Keywords: carbon nanotubes; carbonaceous fragments; cyclic voltammetry; electrocatalysis; electrochemistry.