Solubility of functionalized carbon nanotubes in different solvents

The solubilization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (mwnts) had been a research goal for the past few years. carbon nanotubes could be solubilized in different solvents to promote their potential applications in the form of polymers, copolymers, ceramics, and gasoline, etc. in this work, solubility of the functionalized carbon nanotubes were studied in different solvents such as thf, diehloromethane, ethanol, deionized water and n-hexanc . carboxylic acid groups and amide groups were applied for functinalization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes. octadecylamine and dodecylamine were used for functionalization of carbon nanotubes to study solubility of them in gasoline, for the first time, and compared the results with those of the other solvents. the results showed that amido-functionalized carbon nanotubes had the best solubility in the dichlorome thane, ethanol, and gasoline. in addition it was observed that the solubility of these carbon nanotubes was stable for several days. the resulting materials were characterized by fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (ft-ir), and thermal gravimetry analysis (tga).