Since their discovery, carbon nanotubes have attracted the attention of researchers world wide in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology, mainly due to their remarkable properties and potential applications. Carbon nanotubes are largely inert and call for surface modification to disperse in many solvents to be further manipulated to decorate them with metal or metal oxide nanoparticles for various applications and incorporate them into metal matrices. In the first part of the work, we have decorated the multi-walled carbon nanotubes with metal and metal oxide nanocrystals. In the present study, we have designed a simple and efficient method to decorate the multi-walled carbon nanotubes with copper and nickel nanocrystals and optimized the conditions to achieve homogeneous decoration of those metals and their metal oxide nanocrystals. In the second part of the work, we have incorporated the multi-walled carbon nanotubes into metal matrices. In this work, we have explored several methods and a new solvent to efficiently and uniformly incorporate the multi-walled carbon nanotubes into metal matrices. This was achieved by electrodeposition, mainly because it is a cost effective method to obtain the high purity of deposits. In our case, we have demonstrated that it is possible to incorporate multi-walled carbon nanotubes on copper substrate into nickel matrices. We have used different kinds of multi-walled carbon nanotubes, such as pristine, oxidized and amino-functionalized, to incorporate them into nickel matrices in aqueous solutions. Thereafter, we have used oxidized and pristine multi-walled carbon nanotubes as they showed better incorporation into nickel matrices compared to amino-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes. This was done in ionic liquid, mainly because multi-walled carbon nanotubes showed better dispersion stability in ionic liquids.
Multi-walled carbon nanotubes: decorated with metal nanocrystals and incorporated into metal matrices
Martis, P. (Author). 17 May 2011
Student thesis: Doc types › Doctor of Sciences