Electroless Deposition of Cu-SWCNT Composites

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Pavan M. V. Raja¹  Kourtney Wright¹  Andrew R. Barron¹  Gibran L. Esquenazi¹  Bruce E. Brinson¹  Daniel R. Jones²  Cathren E. Gowenlock²  Jianhua Li³ 

[1] Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA;Energy Safety Research Institute, Swansea University, Bay Campus, Swansea SA1 8EN, UK;Shared Equipment Authority, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA;

关键词: single walled carbon nanotube;    swcnt;    copper;    electroless;    coating;   

DOI  :  10.3390/c5040061

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In this work, as-received HiPCO single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are incorporated in a controllable manner at various concentrations into Cu-SWCNT composites via electroless plating, by varying the related reaction times, with polyethylene glycol (PEG) used as a dispersing agent. The resultant samples were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for morphology assessment, energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) for elemental analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD) for the assessment of crystal phase identification, and Raman spectroscopy for the confirmation of the presence of the incorporated SWCNTs. The Cu-SWCNT composites were found to contain carbon, catalytic iron (associated with the raw, as-received SWCNTs), oxygen, and copper; the latter was found to be inversely proportional to carbon and iron contents. The oxygen (associated with both the SWCNT defect sites and oxidized copper surfaces) remained more or less constant regardless of the proportion of SWCNTs in the composites. The Raman I_G:I_D ratio remains within the experimental error constant, indicating that the electroless deposition does not have a deleterious effect on the SWCNTs. At short deposition times, SEM revealed a relatively dense structure comprising a distinctive fibrous morphology, suggestive of an underlying SWCNT substrate coated with copper; however, with increasing deposition, a more porous morphology is observed. The size of the granular particles increases up until 10 min of reaction, after which time it remains unchanged.

【 授权许可】

Unknown