One-Dimensional Organic-Inorganic Nanocomposite Synthesized with Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Templates

Materials (Basel). 2014 Aug 13;7(8):5858-5865. doi: 10.3390/ma7085858.

Abstract

This study reports on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) as templates for the preparation of 1D porous organic-inorganic hybrid composites. The in situ deposited SWCNT were sputter coated with Sn metal and thermally oxidized in air to form a SnO₂/SWCNT nanowire framework on SiO₂/Si substrate. Poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) was coated onto this scaffold through UV light-induced radical polymerization, which resulted in the final formation of hybrid composites. The structures of hybrid composites were investigated by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. The results show that PAA was successfully coated and the structural advantage of nanowire was fairly maintained, which indicates that this framework is very stable for organic functionalization in solution. The simplicity of this method for the formation of porous organic-inorganic hybrid composites provides a potential application for nanoelectronic devices.

Keywords: carbon nanotube; nanocomposite; poly(acrylic acid).