Abstract
Membranes are crucial in modern industry and both new technologies and materials need to be designed to achieve higher selectivity and performance. Exotic materials such as nanoparticles offer promising perspectives, and combining both their very high specific surface area and the possibility to incorporate them into macrostructures have already shown to substantially increase the membrane performance. In this paper we report on the fabrication and engineering of metal-reinforced carbon nanotube (CNT) Bucky-Paper (BP) composites with tuneable porosity and surface pore size. A BP is an entangled mesh non-woven like structure of nanotubes. Pure CNT BPs present both very high porosity (>90%) and specific surface area (>400 m2/g). Furthermore, their pore size is generally between 20–50 nm making them promising candidates for various membrane and separation applications. Both electro-plating and electroless plating techniques were used to plate different series of BPs and offered various degrees of success. Here we will report mainly on electroless plated gold/CNT composites. The benefit of this method resides in the versatility of the plating and the opportunity to tune both average pore size and porosity of the structure with a high degree of reproducibility. The CNT BPs were first oxidized by short UV/O3 treatment, followed by successive immersion in different plating solutions. The morphology and properties of these samples has been investigated and their performance in air permeation and gas adsorption will be reported.
Highlights
Nano particles [1,2,3] and Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) [4] have attracted increasing interest over the past 20 years
In this paper we report on novel copper/carbon nanotube (CNT) and gold/CNT composites where metal was grown into a BP structure by electrochemical processes
The gold content in the structure was determined by Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) (Perkin Elmer, TGA 7) analysis using a non treated CNT BP as the reference
Summary
Nano particles [1,2,3] and Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) [4] have attracted increasing interest over the past 20 years. BPs offer naturally very high specific surface areas and their potential for gas permeation has been reported in the past [16,17] but better control of their porosity and surface chemistry could lead to higher gas adsorption and separation membranes. In this paper we report on novel copper/CNT and gold/CNT composites where metal was grown into a BP structure by electrochemical processes. Both electroplating and electroless deposition were performed and compare to tune both the average pore size and the porosity of the BPs. Inner properties of the BP were such as their specific surface area and porosity were investigated. Changes induced by the gold on the BP electrical conductivities were monitored while their permeation to air was measured
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