Dispersion of carbon nanostructures using PmPV/DCE solution.

Abstract

Carbon nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene exhibit outstanding mechanical and electrical properties, which provide potential use in varieties of advanced applications in nanotechnology and electronic nanodevices. However such application applications are hinder by the poor solubility of carbon nanostructures in aqueous solution due to the nature of strong van der waals interactions between the carbon atoms, which cause them to aggregation and alter their optical-electronic.

Most of the application and synthesis of carbon nanostructures requires them to be dispersed in the solvent form before any further processing. This report investigated the dispersion of carbon nanostructures using poly-m-phenylenevinylene-co-2,5-dioctoxyp-phenylenevinylene in 1,2-dichloroethane (PmPV/DCE) solution. The ability of PmPV to effectively disperse single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) in DCE was demonstrated using photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) respectively. It was found that PmPV in DCE solution was robust enough to suspend and stabilize CNTs as well as graphene even after vigorous sonication.