Microwaved Nanotubes Come Up Clean

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A multiwalled carbon nanotube cleaned with a process developed at Rice University and Swansea University shows iron catalyst residue has been removed from the surface, while most particles have been removed from inside the nanotube's walls. The process is expected to make nanotubes more suitable for applications like drug delivery and solar panels.

Eliminating iron particles lodged inside large multiwalled nanotubes proved to be harder, but transmission electron microscope images showed their numbers, especially in single-walled tubes, to be greatly diminished.

“We would like to remove all the iron, but for many applications, residue within these tubes is less of an issue than if it were on the surface,” Barron said. “The presence of residual catalyst on the surface of carbon nanotubes can limit their use in biological or medical applications.”

Co-authors of the study are Virginia Gomez, postdoctoral research assistant at Swansea; Silvia Irusta, a professor at the University of Zaragoza, Spain; and Wade Adams, a senior faculty fellow in materials science and nanoengineering at Rice.

Hauge is a distinguished faculty fellow in chemistry and in materials science and nanoengineering at Rice. Barron is the Charles W. Duncan Jr.–Welch Professor of Chemistry and a professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice and the Sêr Cymru Chair of Low Carbon Energy and Environment at Swansea.

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