Liquid Crystalline Behaviors of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes in an Aqueous Sodium Cholate Dispersion

Controlling the alignment of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) on the macroscopic scale is critical for practical applications because SWCNTs are extremely anisotropic materials. One efficient technique is to create an effective SWCNT dispersion, which shows a liquid crystal (LC) phase. A stro...

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Veröffentlicht in:Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids. - 1992. - 38(2022), 29 vom: 26. Juli, Seite 8899-8905
1. Verfasser: Kojima, Keiko (VerfasserIn)
Weitere Verfasser: Aizawa, Miho, Yamamoto, Takahiro, Muroga, Shun, Kobashi, Kazufumi, Okazaki, Toshiya
Format: Online-Aufsatz
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: 2022
Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk:Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids
Schlagworte:Journal Article
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:Controlling the alignment of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) on the macroscopic scale is critical for practical applications because SWCNTs are extremely anisotropic materials. One efficient technique is to create an effective SWCNT dispersion, which shows a liquid crystal (LC) phase. A strong acid treatment can realize SWCNT liquid crystalline dispersions. However, strong acids pose a substantial safety risk, which renders the process unfit for mass production. Herein, an isolated SWCNT dispersion displaying an LC behavior is prepared using sodium cholate without an acid treatment, and its phase transition behaviors are systematically investigated across the isotropic to biphasic to nematic phases. As the SWCNT concentration increases, the dispersion undergoes an isotropic-to-nematic phase transition in which the spindle-shaped LC droplets, or the so-called tactoids, and the Schlieren textures can be observed in the intermediate biphasic state and the nematic phase, respectively. The arrangements of SWCNTs in the tactoids and the Schlieren structures are directly investigated by polarized optical microscopy. The clear LC behaviors of the CNT dispersion suggest that the CNT orientations can be controlled by the normal surfactant-assisted method, which is a crucial advantage for the liquid-phase processing of CNT fibers and films
Beschreibung:Date Revised 26.07.2022
published: Print-Electronic
Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE
ISSN:1520-5827
DOI:10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c01024