The research team led by Professor Wang Yanhui, doctoral supervisor of the Key Laboratory of metastable material preparation technology and science at Yanshan University, has made new progress in the surface coating of carbon nanotubes, successfully preparing core-shell structured multi walled carbon nanotube zirconia nanocomposite materials with controllable coating thickness.
Recently, this research work was published in the internationally renowned journal Nanoletters. Using inorganic salts as precursors, uniform and continuous oxide coatings can be obtained through long-term constant temperature hydrolysis at lower temperatures, forming core-shell structured nanocomposites with broad application prospects in microelectronics and optical functional materials.
Previously, chemical precipitation, hydrothermal method, sol gel method, hydrolysis precipitation method and other methods were usually used for the surface coating of nano powder, but the coating was mostly granular and discontinuous distribution, and most of them could not achieve uniform coating. In order to solve these problems, a well shaped zirconia coating was deposited on the surface of carbon nanotubes. Professor Wang Yanhui from the Key Laboratory of metastable material preparation technology and science at Yanshan University, under the guidance of doctoral student Lu Jing, designed a non boiling hydrolysis device and successfully prepared core-shell structured nanocomposites.
The zirconia layer is uniformly continuous and completely covers the surface of carbon nanotubes. By adjusting the hydrolysis time, the thickness of the coating can be conveniently and effectively controlled. This low-temperature hydrolysis method is an important development of solution deposition of nano coatings. It does not need expensive special plating equipment and has the advantages of simple operation, low energy consumption and good controllability. It can be widely used to coat various nano functional coatings on the surface of nano powders.
