Chemistry of carbon nanotubes

Within the different classes of tubes made of organic or inorganic materials and exhibiting interesting electronic, mechanical, and structural properties, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are exremely promising for applications in materials science and medicinal chemistry. However, the lack of solubility and the difficult manipulation in any solvents have imposed great limitations to the use of CNT. To address these limitations, several approaches for modifying these quasi one-dimensional structures have been developed and these fall into three categories: (a) the covalent attachment of chemical groups through reactions onto the π-conjugated skeleton of CNT; (b) the noncovalent adsorption or wrapping of various functional molecules; and (c) the endohedral filling of their inner empty cavity. With these approaches, laboratories expect to have full control of size and shape, thus developing new applications in composites and electronics.