Polymer nanotubes

Asuri P, Karajanagi SS, Kane RS, Dordick JS (2007). Polymer-nanotube -enzyme composites as active antifouling films. Small 3 50-53. 

KymakisE, Amaratunga GAJ (2002a). Polymer-nanotube composites burying nanotubes improves their field emission properties. Appl. Phys. Lett. 80 1435-1437. 

V. Scardaci, J. Joimel, J. N. Coleman, Transparent, flexible, and highly conductive thin films based on polymer-nanotube composites, ACS Nano, vol. 3, pp. 714-720, 2009. 

The Max Planck Institute has developed a process to manufacture polymer nanotubes with submicronic sizes of the order of hundreds of nanometres. The mechanical properties would be expected to be attractive. 

Wang HJ, Zhou WH, Yin XF, Zhuang ZX, Yang HH, Wang XR. Template synthesized molecularly imprinted polymer nanotube membranes for chemical separations. J Am Chem Soc 2006 128 15954-15955. 

Various processing techniques have been employed in order to uniformly disperse the nanotubes. This is important to increase the interaction at the polymer-nanotube interface. 

K.I. Winey, R. Haggenmueller, F. Du, and W. Zhou, Polymer-nanotube composites, fibers, and processes, US Patent 7 285 591, assigned to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA), October 23, 2007. 

Polymer Nanotube Nanocomposites Synthesis, Properties, and Applications edited by Vikas Mittal. Forthcoming 2010. ISBN 978-0-470-62592-7. 

The purpose of this edited book is to assimilate contributions from a variety of senior scientists in the field of polymer nanotube composites technology to shed light on the recent advances in these commercially important areas of polymer technology. 

Polymer nanotubes composites are now extensively studied. Indeed, one may associate the properties of the polymer with those of nanotubes. This is the case of the mechanical reinforcement of standard polymer for example, but also one can take advantage of the specific electronic properties of the nanotubes. Therefore, we prepared composites with either saturated polymers like polymethylmethacrylate and MWNTs [27]. The electrical conductivity of these compounds as a function of the nanotube content exhibits for example a very low percolation threshold, (a few % in mass) and therefore they can be used as conducting and transparent layers in electronic devices such as Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). Another type of composite that we have studied is based on the use of a conjugated polymer, polyphenylene-vinylene (PPV) known for its photoluminescence properties and SWNTs. We prepared this composite by mixing SWNTs to the precursor polymer of PPV. The conversion into PPV was subsequently performed by a thermal treatment at 300°C under dynamical vacuum [28],... 

Figure 16.2 Illustration of an ABA triblock copolymer, a water-containing nanotube made from this copolymer, and a TEM image of the polymer nanotube. From Grumelard [962]). Copyright 2004, Royal Society of Chemistry.

Coordination polymer nanotubes have been prepared using Hg2+-mediated coassembly of two ligands, tetrapyr-idylporphine (TPyP) 128 and tris(4-pyridyl)-l,3,5-triazine (TPyTa) 129 (which is readily formed by the trimerization of 4-cyanopyridine under acid- or base-catalyzed conditions), at the water-chloroform interface <2006CC3175>. 

The reaction between toluene 2,4-diisocyanate and carboxylated MWCNTs afforded amido-functionalized nanotubes containing highly reactive isocyanate groups on their surface (Scheme 1.4). The amount of the isocyanate groups was determined by chemical titration and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) [105]. The modified tubes may constitute promising components to prepare polymer-nanotube composites and coatings [106]. 

Frackowiak E, Khomenko V, Jurewicz K, Lota K, Beguin F. Supercapacitors based on conducting polymers/nanotubes composites. Journal of Power Sources 2006 153 413-418. 

This review work was carried out at Institute of Chemical and Bioengineering, Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. V. Mittal (ed.) Polymer Nanotube Nanocomposites, (1-14) Scrivener Publishing LLC... 

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