Preparation and Characterization of PMMA-Grafted Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes

PMMA-grafted multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) were prepared by in-situ polymerization both in bulk and in supercritical CO2. The modified nanotubes were characterized by GPC, Raman spectra and TGA. GPC results show that there are two components in the samples, one is PMMA homopolymer, and the other is PMMA-g-MWNTs. Both of Raman red shifts and increases of ID/IG indicate that PMMA are grafted on MWNTs by chemical bonds. TGA results suggest that the graft rates of the samples prepared by insitu polymerization in bulk and in supercritical CO2 are 39% and 27% respectively.