A Surfactant Jacket for Carbon Nanotubes

Significance

Carbon nanotubes are emerging as one of the most versatile new material classes for the design of sensors, electronics, and high-strength materials. Strong inter-nanotube attractions lead to bundled structures that are insoluble and considerable efforts have been made to create robust dispersions of these materials. Dispersions in water are attractive for biological applications, however, systems with simple surfactants have limited stability and shelf life. In this contribution a polymerizable ionic complex was bound to the carbon nanotubes and subsequent polymerization created superior dispersions.