Polymer synthesis inside a nanospace of a surfactant–micelle on carbon nanotubes: creation of highly-stable individual nanotubes/ultrathin cross-linked polymer hybrids

Abstract

We describe a novel synthetic method towards single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs)/polymer hybrids utilizing the nanospace of a surfactant–micelle on the SWNTs, which provides highly stable SWNTs/ultrathin cross-linked polymer networks. In this study, N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM) is used as the monomer for the SWNT-wrapping. The prepared SWNTs wrapped by the poly(NIPAM) are stable even after freeze-drying/redispersion cycles as well as after the addition of a large excess of surfactant molecules, and the stability is much higher than that of previously reported phospholipid-wrapped SWNTs that have been often used for the bio-applications of SWNTs. The present method is simple and opens a way to design and fabricate stable individually dissolved SWNT/polymer hybrids that are useful for many applications including bio-applications since a variety of (functional) monomers are readily applicable to the present method.