Metal coated functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes for composites application

This study is considered as a method for producing multifunctional metal composite materials by using Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWNTs). In this research, various metals (Ni, Cu, Ag) were successfully deposited onto the surface of SWNTs. It has been found that homogenous dispersion and dense nucleation sites are the necessary conditions to form uniform coating on SWNTs. Functionalization has been applied to achieve considerable improvement in the dispersion of purified single-walled carbon nanotubes. A three-step electroless plating approach was used and the coating mechanism is described in the paper. The samples were characterized by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The application of coated SWNTs in Titanium will be discussed in this paper.