xxiii πανελληνιο ÏƒÏ Î½ÎµÎ´ÏÎ¹Î¿ Ï†Ï ÏƒÎ¹ÎºÎ·Ï‚ στερεας καταστασης & επιστημης ...

Polymer Based Hybrid Materials: Synthesis and Applications of Materials Containing
Carbon Nanostructures
Grigoris Mountrichas 1* , Stergios Pispas 1 and Nikos Tagmatarchis 1
1 Theoretical and Physical Chemistry Institute, National Hellenic Research Foundation, 48 Vass. Constantinou Ave., 11635
Athens, Greece
*gmountri@eie.gr
Carbon nanostructures, like the well known carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and the newly discovered carbon nanohorns (CNHs),
are promising materials towards a wide gamut of application in biomedicine, nanoelectronics, and materials science. The
inherent insolubility of both CNTs and CNHs hampers their utilization in nanotechnological applications. On going efforts of
our group concern the solubility enhancement of these materials which will aid not only the study of their solution properties
but most importantly the preparation of a series of novel nanosized hybrids. Towards this end, CNTs and CNHs have been
functionalized with polymers by applying diverse strategies. In this context, we have succeeded on the covalent attachment as
well as non-covalent wrapping of polymers onto the skeleton of the carbon-based nanostructures, Scheme 1. Importantly,
with the latter approach the novel π-electronic network of CNTs and CNHs remain intact, however, the interactions between
the polymers and the carbon nanostructures are strong enough that solubilization of the nanosized hybrid material is
achieved. Moreover, we have been able to combine functionalities of the polymer with the exotic properties of the carbonbased
nanostructures. The hybrid materials were characterized by a variety of complementary analytical techniques, while
investigated morphologically by state-of-the-art HR-TEM and DLS. Finally, such hybrids have been studied in terms of their
physical properties as independent units and as parts of supramolecular aggregates with functional moieties like porphyrins
and inorganic semiconductor nanoparticles.
Scheme 1: Schematic representation of the covalent (left) and non-covalent (right) functionalization of carbon
nanostructures with polymers
References
1) Mountrichas Grigoris, Pispas Stergios, Tagmatarchis Nikos Small, 2007, 3, 404-407
2) Mountrichas Grigoris, Tagmatarchis Nikos, Pispas Stergios J. Phys. Chem. B in press.
Acknowledgements
The work presented has been conducted as part of the award “Functionalization of Carbon Nanotubes Encapsulating Novel
Carbon-based Nanostructured Materials” made under the European Heads of Research Councils and European Science
Foundation EURYI (European Young Investigator) Awards scheme and supported by funds from the Participating
Organizations of EURYI and the EC Sixth Framework Programme. We are deeply indebted to Prof. Sumio Iijima (NEC
Corporation, Tsukuba, Japan) for kindly providing carbon nanohorns with the highest quality.
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