Construction of various nanostructures on carbon nanotube films

Abstract

Construction of nanostructures on surfaces has appealed intensive attention due to its significant applications in diverse fields. Especially, engineering surface properties via surficial nanostructures is actually the creation of functional interface-based materials and slated to be the key aspect for the future of materials science. Although many efforts have been made, there are only a few reports about the construction of nanostructures on carbon nanotube film surfaces. The big challenge for constructing on carbon films is that these carbon assemblies are easy to be dispersed by immersion in a chemical solution. Here, in this paper, we have shown for the first time the fabrication of different kinds of nanostructures, i.e. nanoneedles, nanoparticles, nanospirals, on carbon nanotube films by using facile and cheap electrodeposition method and precise physical deposition method. We pretreat the films by an electrical method to strengthen the films to avoid dispersion during the electrodeposition process. These composite films are still very flexible after coating with nanostructures. Compared with those precise physical deposition methods, the facile electrodeposition method is more suitable for constructing nanostructures on carbon nanotube films, due to the low requirement for planeness of films. It is interesting to find that these nanostructures can endow superhydrophobicity or higher conductivity for these flexible composite films, which greatly broaden the potential applications for carbon nanotube films in the fields of battery, moisture self-cleaning, electrostatic energy harvesting, and enhancing condensation heat transfer for more efficiency of energy utilization, environmental, and thermal management.