Functionalization of Shortened Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes with Poly(p-dioxanone) by'Grafting-From' Approach

It has been a real challenge to form carbon nanotube (CNT)/polymer composites where CNTs are well-dispersed in the polymer matrix and the interactions between CNTs and polymers are effectively strong. In this paper, we applied surface-initiated, ring-opening polymerization (SI-ROP) of p-dioxanone (PDX) to shortened single-walled carbon naotubes (s-SWCNTs) and successfully formed s-SWCNT/PPDX composites (see Figure). Due to intimate interactions between s-SWCNTs and PPDX, we observed dramatic changes in PPDX properties upon the formation of the composites: 10%-weight-loss-temperature of PPDX increased by 20°C (measured by thermogravimetric analysis) and the patterns of T g and T m were greatly altered. We did not observed any noticeable peaks from the composite up to 120°C in differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), while DSC data of PPDX itself showed T g and T m at 13.4 and 103°C respectively.