Title: Dispersion of singled walled carbon nanotube in water in presence of direct current field

Abstract

The dispersed solution of Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) have been utilized in different industrial and laboratory applications such as electrodes of batteries, super capacitors, gas sensors etc. There are many difficulties and challenges to make a stable suspension of SWCNT as they tend to self-associate into clusters. These clusters have to be dispersed before they could be used for different applications. In this research, an effort has been made to reduce the agglomeration of SWCNT by sonication in presence of Direct Current field (DC). It was found that sonication under DC field has increased the degree of dispersion. Furthermore, the result shows that SWCNT can be dispersed with or without use of any surfactants by sonication in presence of DC field. The use of surfactants could increase the impurity content of dispersed solution which was reduced by our modified method of dispersion. In addition, it is shown that our modified method can be used to study dispersion with minimal use of expensive chemicals like SWCNTs.