The Effect of Ultrasonic Dispersion on the Surface Chemistry of Carbon Nanotubes in the Jeffamine D-230 Polyetheramine Medium

This paper studies changes in the surface chemistry of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) where they are under ultrasonication process in Jeffamine D-230 polyetheramine medium. Jeffamine is used as a curing agent in the nanocomposite manufacturing process. In the nanocomposite technology, ultrasonication process is employed as a method for dispersion of CNTs in a suspension. This research tries to investigate the effect of ultrasonic dispersion with different time and energy on the surface chemistry of CNTs by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The results show ultrasonication of CNTs in the Jeffamine medium leads to significant oxidation and hydration along creating new chemical bonds on the CNTs surface.