Barnard Amanda S
School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
J Phys Condens Matter. 2009 Apr 8;21(14):144205. doi: 10.1088/0953-8984/21/14/144205. Epub 2009 Mar 18.
In parallel with the development of technological applications for carbon nanotubes, issues related to toxicology and environmental impact are also under increased scrutiny. It is clear from the available literature that the integrity of future carbon nanotube-based devices, our ability to anticipate failure of these devices, and our ability to manage the toxicological and environmental impacts require a detailed understanding of the stability of pure and functionalized carbon nanotubes under a full range of environmental conditions. Motivated by this endeavour, the present study uses a general thermodynamic model to predict the relative stability of carbon nanotubes exposed to a variety of atmospheric adsorbates, and uses them to examine the stability of nanotubes in air, as a function of the relative humidity. In general the results indicate that the adsorption of a sparse coverage of air is thermodynamically favoured, depending on the humidity, and the stability of small diameter nanotubes may be improved by exposure to humid air.
在碳纳米管技术应用发展的同时，与毒理学和环境影响相关的问题也受到越来越多的审视。从现有文献中可以清楚地看到，未来基于碳纳米管的设备的完整性、我们预测这些设备故障的能力以及我们管理毒理学和环境影响的能力，都需要详细了解纯碳纳米管和功能化碳纳米管在各种环境条件下的稳定性。受此研究目的的驱动，本研究使用一个通用的热力学模型来预测暴露于各种大气吸附物的碳纳米管的相对稳定性，并将其用于研究纳米管在空气中的稳定性与相对湿度的关系。总体而言，结果表明，根据湿度情况，稀疏覆盖的空气吸附在热力学上是有利的，并且暴露于潮湿空气中可能会提高小直径纳米管的稳定性。
