Efficient and Mild Microwave-Assisted Functionalization of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes with Phenyl isocyanate and Phenyl isothiocyanate by using 1,4-phenylenediamine and their toxicity investigations

Functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) are prepared via microwaveinduced reaction of carboxylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT-COOH) with 1,4-phenylenediamine, followed by reaction with phenyl isocyanate or phenyl isothiocyanate. The excellence of this procedure is that the reaction time and the number of reaction steps are reduced. In this manner, the procedure is greener than conventional functionalizationmethods due to the elimination of a hazardous regent, namely Oxalyl chloride. The products were similar to those were obtained using conventional methods and they were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), elemental analysis and cellular investigations. The results of cell viability assay and microscopic observations demonstrated that the cancerous cells were killed in presence of all functionalized MWNTs except phenyl isothiocyanate functionalized MWNT

Keywords:

multi-walled carbon nanotubes , microwave-assisted functionalization , phenyl isocyanate , phenyl isothiocyanate , 1 , 4-phenylendiamine , toxicity investigation