Green synthesis of polymer monoliths incorporated with carbon nanotubes in room temperature ionic liquid and deep eutectic solvents

Abstract

In this work, an efficient method to prepare polymer monoliths with incorporated carbon nanotubes in a mixture of room temperature ionic liquid and deep eutectic solvents was developed. With assistance of the binary green solvent, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate and choline chloride/ethylene glycol, single-walled carbon nanotubes were dispersed successfully in pre-polymerization mixture without need of oxidative cutting of carbon nanotubes, which may allow depletion of the emission of volatile organic compounds into environment. The novel single-walled carbon nanotubes monolith was evaluated by capillary electrochromatography. Compared with the monolith made without single-walled carbon nanotubes, the monolith with the incorporation of single-walled carbon nanotubes exhibited high column efficiency (251,000plates/m) in the chromatographic separation. The morphology of the monolith can be tuned by the composition of mixture of ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents to afford good column permeability and excellent separation ability for small molecules of alkyl phenones and alkyl benzenes. The results demonstrated that the method is a green strategy for the fabrication of multifunctional polymer monoliths.