A Simple and Facile Approach to Synthesize Water-Soluble Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Wrapped by Poly(4-Vinylpyridine)

By simple grinding, water-soluble linear polymers poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PVP) wrapped around multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and thus rendered them reversibly soluble in water, ethanol, and DMF. The structure and properties of the resulting nanocomposite, CNTs wrapped by PVP, were evaluated by SEM, AFM, TGA, and FTIR spectroscopy. Individual tubes are clearly observed after PVP-wrapped nanotubes were spin-coated onto a silicon wafer as determined by SEM and AFM. Subsequently, a novel and facile approach to attach high-density and uniform size gold nanoparticles on individual multiwalled carbon nanotubes was achieved by in situ reduction of HAuCl₄ in the homogeneous aqueous solution of MWCNTs–PVP.