Volume 16, Issue 4, 2007

LETTER: PREPARATION OF CHITOSAN /CARBON NANOTUBES COMPOSITES

Ai-hong LIU^1,2, Kang-ning SUN ^1,2*, Ai-min LI^1,2

¹Shandong University. Key Lab. For Liquid Structure and Heredity of Materials of Education
² Engineering Ceramics Key Lab. of Shandong Province; Jinan Shandong Province 250061, P.R. China

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed, E-mail address: Sunkangning@sdu.edu.cn

Received 17 June 2007; accepted 17 September 2007

ABSTRACT

In this paper, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were first purified and oxidized by blend acid composed of vitriol and nitric acid, and then surface decorated with biopolymer chitosan via a controlled surface deposition and crosslinking process. The results showed that the diameter of CNTs became thicker because the surface of CNTs was covered with chitsoan, and the dispersion of CNTs was improved.

Keywords: Carbon nanotubes; chitosan; decoration