As it is studied, Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes owe superhydrophobic character which can limit their applications ( for example in drug delivery and in the body). Anybody knows how to decrease this and make a hydrophilic materials out of it? Would you please explain the detailed experimental method? Anybody here has done this in the lab?
* Consider the substrate is titanium.
I've been dealing with modification of nanoparticles to increase their hydrophilicity for almost 10 years. In the case of CNTs, you can impart oxygen/amino moieties either by wet chemistry approaches (e.g. strong acid treatments, p-p stacking with aromatic compounds containing even hydrophilic moieties) or dry chemistry, by using plasma reactions. Read this article:
Article Plasma Functionalization of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes and...
Partial oxidation and adding polar -OH or -COOH groups can help a lot.
There should be plenty of literature.
There is a close relationship between the hydrophobicity and hybradaion of the DLC thin films. It is suggested to see the following link:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749603615000518
There is lot of literarture available in this regard
Search for modified hummer's method
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4690451/
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/cc/c2cc32313c#!divAbstract
Some people reported that Nitrogen-doping in graphene and CNT can (a) increase the electrical conductivity and (b) reduce the hydrophobic.You shall try it. This increases the applicability of your CNT in electrical storage application.
I've been dealing with modification of nanoparticles to increase their hydrophilicity for almost 10 years. In the case of CNTs, you can impart oxygen/amino moieties either by wet chemistry approaches (e.g. strong acid treatments, p-p stacking with aromatic compounds containing even hydrophilic moieties) or dry chemistry, by using plasma reactions. Read this article:
Article Plasma Functionalization of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes and...
The two most common ways are definitely a) surface functionalization (eg reaction in a strong acid to oxidize the surface or plasma treatment and break the hydrophobic effect, as mentioned) or b) non-covalent bonding.
I've dealt mostly with the later. It's not as effective and can be very challenging sometimes to work with, but is still promising for allowing CNT to be manipulated without destroying their properties. Usually this is done to obtain CNT aqueous dispersions, but with care I believe it will work effectively for substrate-bound CNT as well. The biggest concerns are the initial wetting of the CNT (perhaps try an organic solvent with a low surfactant concentration), and then the drying (perhaps freeze-drying and annealing), really anything where capillary forces could destroy the sample.
For your sample the other methods mentioned are probably more fruitful, but there are alternatives.
I would suggest to try an electrochemical method of oxidation.
Best,
Trupti
Chemical, electrochemical, polymer wrapping and plasma treatments will be useful to change the surface formular of CNTs.
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