The role of surfactants in dispersion of carbon nanotubes

The discovery of carbon nanotubes offers exciting opportunities for the development of novel high property materials. Disaggregation and uniform dispersion are critical challenges that must be met to successfully produce such high property materials, since carbon nanotubes tend to self-associate into micro-scale aggregates. This results in products with inferior mechanical and electric performance. Recognizing this problem, extensive research has been reported in the literature on development of dispersion technologies based on both mechanical and chemical approaches. Here, we review recent progress and advances that have been made on dispersion of carbon nanotubes in aqueous and organic media by non-covalent adsorption of surfactants and polymers. Carbon nanotube structure, properties and mainly self-assembly are discussed in detail.