Chimie de surface des nanotubes de carbone, vers une meilleure dispersion et solubilisation

  • Simon Detriche

    Student thesis: Doc typesDoctor of Sciences

    Abstract

    This thesis is in line with the manipulation and the characterisation of carbon nanotubes. Indeed, these new allotropic forms of carbon, at the center of a lot of studies since their discovery, remain mysterious. With their characteristics of black bodies and their conductor or semi-conductor behaviour, their characterisation can be, at the best, described as delicate. As for their manipulation, it clashes mainly against the problem of its molecular mass which is higher than the million. All this can explain the dispersion and solubilisation problems often found in the literature. These problems of dispersion/solubilisation are also the reason of the difficulties encountered with the incorporation of carbon nanotubes into polymers, in spite of the multiple researches occurring in this field. In a first time, a preliminary study of the solubilisation of non-functionalized carbon nanotubes in organic solvents was carried out. This study had for target the development of a reliable and reproducible protocol for the solubility measurement. Once the measurement protocol developed, a data-gathering phase could follow. This new step allowed to gather a sufficient number of data’s to correlate the solubility of non-functionalized carbon nanotubes with known physical chemistry parameters. The good correlation between the non-functionalized carbon nanotubes solubility and the Hansen parameters of the used solvents could be demonstrated. Consequently, some applications could be enabled, such as the separation of carbon nanotubes functions of their size or the formation of nanotubes gels. In a second part, the influence of the surface state of the functionnalized carbon nanotubes on their solubility was studied. After the study of the solubility of the functionnalized carbon nanotubes in several solvents, it could be demonstrated that a strong correlation between the surface state of the nanotubes used and the solubility variations observed was existing. This correlation paves the way for the use of the solubility as a characterisation technique for carbon nanotubes. Finally, a third part takes an interest in the interactions between some polyaromatic derivatives and the walls of carbon nanotubes. The adsorption of these compounds made profit for the development of a technique concerning the measure of the specific surface of carbon nanotubes.
    Date of Award31 Aug 2010
    Original languageFrench
    Awarding Institution
    • University of Namur
    SupervisorJoseph DELHALLE (Supervisor), Janos B.NAGY (Co-Supervisor), Zineb Mekhalif (Jury), Jean-Pascal Piret (Jury) & Steven Abbott (Jury)

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