The Effect of Surface Area, Pore Volume, and Pore Size Distribution on the Modified Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) have emerged and gained great interest for research in many applications because of their unique specific characteristics such as having high porosity, high surface area and the existence of a wide spectrum of surface functional groups through chemical modification. Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) is a type of CNT that comprises of multiple layers of concentric cylinders. The overall study of this research work is to modify MWCNT to become a good adsorbent that can adsorb CO 2 at its optimum capacity. In order to make MWCNT as an efficient adsorbent, surface treatment on pristine MWCNT is necessary to overcome the hydrophobicity issue by the introduction of carboxyl group. Upon the surface treatment, functionalization of MWCNT with 3-Aminopropyl triethoxysilane (APTS) was conducted to obtain the attachment of amine group that will assist MWCNT in adsorbing CO 2 . The surface treatment and functionalization process undergone by MWCNT changed the physical properties of MWCNT such as the surface area, pore volume, and pore size distribution. These properties can be determined using surface area and pore analyzer (SAP). Sample that treated with the mixture of nitric and sulfuric acid (HNO 3 /H 2 SO 4 ) and functionalized with APTS gives the lowest surface area (22.07 m 2 /g) and pore volume (0.06 cm 3 /g). The pore size distribution also decreases due to the most presence of functional group onto the surface of modified MWCNT. This research paper is focusing on the effect of surface area, pore volume, and pore size distribution on the modified MWCNT.