1. THANKS TO : CONTROLLING THE FUNCTIONALIZATION OF CARBON NANOSTRUCTURES
FOR ENERGY RELATED MATERIALS
Teresa Gatti* and Enzo Menna*
*Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, Università di Padova
Synthetic procedures that have been developed to functionalize Carbon Nanostructures (CNSs) such as Single and Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNTs, MWCNTs), Carbon Nanohorns (CNHs) and Graphene-Based Materials (GBMs) may require long reaction times and harsh conditions. Moreover, unlike common molecules, resulting products are hardly associated to a specific structure and may be rather described as a distribution of derivatives.
SWCNTs
MWCNTs
CNHs
GBMs 1 2 3 4 n
extracted fraction
Sonication
Centrifugation
Supernatant
Extractions
Chemical
Functionalization:
Pristine CNTs:
highly aggregated material
Functionalized CNTs:
dispersible material
In this context we have studied the continuous flow processing of carbon nanostructures with the aim not only to reduce reaction times but also to tune the properties of the functionalized carbon materials. We demonstrated the generation of reactive azomethine ylides through different routes. Our methodology leads to derivatives with similar functionalization degree (FD) of those reacted in a flask but with reaction times dramatically reduced compared to batch conditions1,2 and a productivity almost two orders of magnitude higher.
Extremely versatile:
To improve:
- TIMES
- SCALABILITY
….new solvents ….new process
Batch
3-5 DAYS
Azomethinylide
cycloaddition
Flow
The flow methodology was also extended to the fast and effective addition of diazonium salts to CNTs and also to the functionalization of GBMs. Besides reducing processing time, the flow approach allows to control the FD of CNSs, leading to derivatives with enhanced solubility that retain the electronic properties of pristine tubes and can be used for organic electronics or photovoltaic applications.3,4
Extremely fast:
To control
functionalization:
- DEGREE
- MORPHOLOGY
SINGLE STEP,
MINUTES
Diazotization
P3HT
ELECTRON
DONOR
ACCEPTOR
BHJ
Batch
Flow
P3HT PL
P3HT PL NO
QUENCHING
QUENCHING
2010
1 Chem. Commun. 2011, 47,
2 J. Flow. Chem. 2014, 4,
3 Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5,
4 J. Mater. Chem. C, 2015, 3,
THANKS TO :