Comparative Study of Carbon Nanotube Dispersion Using Surfactants

The discovery of carbon nanotubes offers exciting opportunities for the development of novel high property materials. Disaggregation and uniform dispersion are critical challenges that mustbe met to successfully produce such high property materials, since carbon nanotubes tend to selfassociateinto micro-scale aggregates. This results in products with inferior mechanical and electric performance. Recognizing this problem, extensive research has been reported in the literature on development of dispersion technologies based on both mechanical and chemicalapproaches. A surfactant's property of accumulation at surfaces or interfaces has been widelyutilized to promote stable dispersions of solids in different media [1–5]. Here, we review recent progress and advances that have been made on dispersion of carbon nanotubes in aqueous and organic media by non-covalent adsorption of surfactants and polymers. Carbon nanotube structure, properties and mainly self-assembly are discussed in detail.

Comparative Study of Carbon Nanotube Dispersion Using Surfactants Keywords:

Carbn nanotube , surfactant , sodium dodecyl sulfate , Triton X-100 , cetyl trimethyl ammonium Bromide ,