Grafting-to approach for the functionalization of carbon nanotubes with polystyrene

In the present paper we describe the synthesis and the characterization of polystyrene functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The synthesis is realized through a grafting-to approach of preformed polystyrene chains, synthesized by anionic polymerization high vacuum techniques, onto the surface of a variety of CNTs, i.e. shorted-MWNTs, MWNTs and SWNTs. The functionalized materials are characterized by a variety of complementary techniques including spectroscopy, electron microscopy and thermogravimetric analysis.