Probe diffusion of single-walled carbon nanotubes in semidilute solutions of polyacrylonitrile homo- and copolymers: Effects of topological constraints and polymer/Nanorod interactions

With varying the molecular weight, copolymer chemical structure and concentration, the probe diffusion behavior of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in N, N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) solutions of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) was studied by dynamic light scattering (DLS) technique. In combination wit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polymer (Guilford) 2012-10, Vol.53 (22), p.5069-5077
Main Authors: Xiao, Zhiwei, Gupta, Murari, Baltas, George, Liu, Tao, Chae, Han Gi, Kumar, Satish
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Bundling
carbon nanotubes
chemical structure
composite polymers
Composites
Copolymers
Diffusion
Dynamics
Exact sciences and technology
Forms of application and semi-finished materials
hydrogen bonding
light scattering
molecular weight
nanorods
Nanostructure
Polyacrylonitrile
Polyacrylonitriles
Polymer industry, paints, wood
quantitative analysis
Semidilute solution
Single wall carbon nanotubes
Single-walled carbon nanotube
Technology of polymers
Topology
viscosity
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Summary:With varying the molecular weight, copolymer chemical structure and concentration, the probe diffusion behavior of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in N, N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) solutions of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) was studied by dynamic light scattering (DLS) technique. In combination with the systematic viscosity property investigation for PAN/DMAc system, the probe diffusion results provided insight to understand the interactions between PAN and SWCNTs. It was found that, due to depletion interaction, the SWCNT diffusion positively deviates from the Stokes–Einstein (SE) relation in PAN homopolymer solutions. However, in PAN copolymer solution, the SWCNT diffusion mostly obeys the SE relation, which was speculated as a result of hydrogen-bonding formation between the carboxylic acid functional groups in PAN copolymers and on purified SWCNTs. Moreover, due to the unique features of SWCNT probes – very long, extremely rigid, and adjustable bundle diameter, the SWCNT probe diffusion unambiguously revealed the topological constraints of polymer network responsible for the retardation of thin rod diffusion. Quantitative analysis indicated that the correlation length rather than the “tube” diameter of polymer liquid is the critical length scale to dictate the diffusion retardation of SWCNTs in polymer solutions. [Display omitted]
ISSN:0032-3861
1873-2291
DOI:10.1016/j.polymer.2012.09.006