CARBON NANOTUBES - FROM RESEARCH TO APPLICATIONS Edited by Stefano Bianco Carbon Nanotubes - From Research to Applications Edited by Stefano Bianco Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Viktorija Zgela Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer Jan Hyrat Image Copyright wimammoth, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published July, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Carbon Nanotubes - From Research to Applications, Edited by Stefano Bianco p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-500-6 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Part 1 Theory, Characterization and Application of Carbon Nanotubes 1 Chapter 1 Nitrogen-Containing Carbon Nanotubes - A Theoretical Approach 3 M. Leonor Contreras and Roberto Rozas Chapter 2 Dioxygen Adsorption and Dissociation on Nitrogen Doped Carbon Nanotubes from First Principles Simulation 27 Shizhong Yang, Guang-Lin Zhao and Ebrahim Khosravi Chapter 3 Hydrogen Adsorptivity of Bundle-Structure Controlled Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes 37 Shigenori Utsumi and Katsumi Kaneko Chapter 4 Nanoadhesion and Nanopeeling Forces of Carbon Nanotube on Substrate 55 Kouji Miura, Makoto Ishikawa and Naruo Sasaki Chapter 5 Evaluation of Histidine Functionalized Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes for Improvement in the Sensitivity of Cadmium Ions Determination in Flow Analysis 67 Giovana de Fátima Lima, Fernanda Midori de Oliveira, Maikow de Oliveira Ohara, Mariana Gava Segatelli and César Ricardo Teixeira Tarley Chapter 6 Research and Application of CNT Composite Electroplating 81 Guifu Ding, Yan Wang, Min Deng, Xuemei Cui, Huiqing Wu and Lida Zhu Chapter 7 Assembly and Patterning of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes/Organic Semiconductors 111 Akira Baba, Kazunari Shinbo, Keizo Kato, Futao Kaneko, Hirobumi Ushijima and Kiyoshi Yase VI Contents Chapter 8 Formation of a Silicon Carbide Layer on Vapor Grown Carbon Nanofiber ® by Sol-Gel and Carbothermal Reduction Techniques 125 Kiyoshi Itatani, Jumpei Kita, Ian J. Davies, Hiroshi Suemasu, Hiroki Moriyasu and Seiichiro Koda Chapter 9 Microwave Dielectric Characterization of Carbon Nanotube Networks 141 Emmanuel Decrossas and Samir M. El-Ghazaly Chapter 10 Graphene Phytotoxicity in the Seedling Stage of Cabbage, Tomato, Red Spinach and Lettuce 157 Bunshi Fugetsu and Parvin Begum Chapter 11 Carbon Nanotube Radio 179 Ujjal Kumar Sur Part 2 Carbon Nanotube-Based Composite Materials 195 Chapter 12 Transparent Conductive Carbon Nanotube/ Binder Hybrid Thin Film Technology 197 Joong Tark Han, Hee Jin Jeong, Seung Yol Jeong and Geon-Woong Lee Chapter 13 Fabrication and Applications of Carbon Nanotube-Based Hybrid Nanomaterials by Means of Non-Covalently Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes 211 Haiqing Li and Il Kim Chapter 14 Novel Carbon Nanotubes-Based Hybrid Composites for Sensing Applications 229 Nicola Donato, Mariangela Latino and Giovanni Neri Chapter 15 Nanocomposites Based on Elastomeric Matrix Filled with Carbon Nanotubes for Biological Applications 243 Stefano Bianco, Pietro Ferrario, Marzia Quaglio Riccardo Castagna and Candido F. Pirri Chapter 16 Investigation of the Effective Reinforcement Modulus of Carbon Nanotubes in an Epoxy Matrix 269 Alfonso Martone, Gabriella Faiella, Mauro Zarrelli, Vincenza Antonucci and Michele Giordano Chapter 17 Synthesis of Carbon Nanotube-Metal Oxides Composites; Adsorption and Photo-Degradation 295 Vinod K. Gupta and Tawfik A. Saleh Contents VII Chapter 18 Foam Materials Made from Carbon Nanotubes 313 Kyuya Nakagawa Chapter 19 Wear Properties of Cu-CNT Nanocomposites 335 Rajendrakumar G Patil, Vishnukanth Chatpalli and Ramesh C S Preface Since their discovery in 1991, carbon nanotubes have been considered as one of the most promising materials for a wide range of applications, in virtue of their outstand- ing properties. During the last two decades, both single-walled and multi-walled CNTs probably represented the hottest research topic concerning materials science, equally from a fundamental and from an applicative point of view. Research on CNT synthesis, combined with basic understanding on growth phenomena, contributed to the development of a well controlled process and, thanks to this, the CNT production is now mature and ready for industrialization. Moreover, CNT application and inte- gration in very different systems, from nanoelectronics to optics, from biosensing to reinforcing in nanocomposites, was extensively demonstrated. There is a prevailing opinion among the research community that CNTs are now ready for application in everyday world. This book provides an (obviously not exhaus- tive) overview on some of the amazing possible applications of CNT-based materials in the near future. Some interesting topics concerning CNT surface treatment and in- tegration with other materials are covered, both from a theoretical and from an exper- imental point of view. Particular emphasis is devoted to the application of carbon nanostructures as reinforcements in nanocomposites. In fact, this field currently ap- pears as the most promising for the immediate market application, since the tailoring of material characteristics with CNT integration could open new astonishing possibili- ties in materials science. Stefano Bianco Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy [...]... ECNT are the total energies for saturated carbon nanotubes with the same number of layers with and without nitrogen, respectively; EC, EH, and EN are the total energies of an isolated carbon atom, hydrogen atom, and nitrogen atom, respectively; and n is the total number of layers in the nanotube EC was calculated as EC E CNT – 6n 6 EH / 6n (3) 10 Carbon Nanotubes - From Research to Applications... nitrogencontaining carbon nanotubes of different configurations ended by hydrogen atoms Sconfiguration nanotubes behave as the most polar, and M-configuration nanotubes behave as the most unpolar, among all the studied nanotubes, regardless of terminal group Nitrogen-containing carbon nanotubes with small diameters have the capacity to store a full monolayer of hydrogen via chemisorption Shorter nanotubes and nanotubes. .. applications Nitrogen-doped nanotubes are less toxic than undoped carbon nanotubes, but some concern about their safe use remains (Pastorin, 2009; Stern & McNeil, 2008) Experimental research involving the analysis of the toxicological effects on both mice and amoeba cell viability caused by nitrogen-doped or undoped carbon nanotubes indicates that nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes are less harmful and... 4 Carbon Nanotubes - From Research to Applications lengths for fully hydrogenated nitrogen-containing carbon nanotubes, obtained using density-functional theory, are somewhat longer and range from 1.54 to 1.57 Å (Contreras et al., 2010) depending on the nanotube configuration Experimental work by Dillon et al (Dillon et al., 1997), which reported 10 wt % of hydrogen uptake by single-walled carbon nanotubes. .. saturated nanotubes of within 2—3 D for the different end-groups at the 18 Carbon Nanotubes - From Research to Applications lengths considered The respective variation for unsaturated nanotubes is less than 1 D The dipole moment for the saturated nitrogen-containing carbon nanotubes increases with the number of layers This trend is also true for saturated nanotubes terminated by hydrogen atoms of different... nitrogen-doped carbon xerogels enhanced hydrogen adsorption at 35°C (K.Y Kang et al., 2009) Because the incorporation of nitrogen atoms into carbon nanotubes affords structures with the ability to participate in hydrogen bonding, these nitrogen-doped nanostructures may have additional chemical properties, such as the immobilization of transition metals (Feng et 6 Carbon Nanotubes - From Research to Applications... Leszczynski, J (2007) Chemisorption of hydrogen atoms on the sidewalls of armchair single-walled carbon nanotubes 24 Carbon Nanotubes - From Research to Applications Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol.111, No.20, (May 2007), pp 7376-7383, ISSN 1932-7447 Feng, H.; Ma, J & Hu, Z (2010) Nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes functionalized by transition metal atoms: a density functional study Journal of Materials... nitrogen-containing carbon nanotubes of M-configuration with different end-groups vs length 22 Carbon Nanotubes - From Research to Applications The chemisorption process is somewhat more exothermic in the presence of terminal groups than for open nanotubes without terminal groups The calculated molecular hydrogen absorption energy for a single-walled (8,0) carbon nanotube decorated with atomic nitrogen... saturated nitrogen-containing carbon nanotubes: (top) the O-configuration (the more stable) and (bottom) the S-configuration (the more unstable) Nitrogen-Containing Carbon Nanotubes - A Theoretical Approach 15 3.3 Charge analysis Charge analysis was conducted for carbon 2 (contiguous to the two nitrogen atoms on each layer) of the most stable configuration of the hydrogen-chemisorbed nanotubes with between... the S-configuration of the 20-layer totally hydrogenated nanotubes, unlike those in the O-configuration (see Figure 7) 14 Carbon Nanotubes - From Research to Applications Fig 6 Fully hydrogenated 8-layered nitrogen-containing carbon nanotubes with different configurations (a) S-type, eclipsed; (b) O-type, rotated 60º; (c) M-type, rotated 120º; (d) Ptype, rotated 180º Top and side views of the optimised . CARBON NANOTUBES - FROM RESEARCH TO APPLICATIONS Edited by Stefano Bianco Carbon Nanotubes - From Research to Applications Edited by Stefano. Characterization of Carbon Nanotube Networks 14 1 Emmanuel Decrossas and Samir M. El-Ghazaly Chapter 10 Graphene Phytotoxicity in the Seedling Stage of Cabbage, Tomato, Red Spinach and Lettuce 15 7 Bunshi. Chapter 11 Carbon Nanotube Radio 17 9 Ujjal Kumar Sur Part 2 Carbon Nanotube-Based Composite Materials 19 5 Chapter 12 Transparent Conductive Carbon Nanotube/ Binder Hybrid Thin Film Technology 19 7