From Behavior of Water on Hydrophobic Graphene Surfaces to Ultra-Confinement of Water in Carbon Nanotubes.
Fiche publication
Date publication
janvier 2021
Journal
Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland)
Auteurs
Membres identifiés du Cancéropôle Est :
Dr PICAUD Fabien
Tous les auteurs :
Mejri A, Herlem G, Picaud F
Lien Pubmed
Résumé
In recent years and with the achievement of nanotechnologies, the development of experiments based on carbon nanotubes has allowed to increase the ionic permeability and/or selectivity in nanodevices. However, this new technology opens the way to many questionable observations, to which theoretical work can answer using several approximations. One of them concerns the appearance of a negative charge on the carbon surface, when the latter is apparently neutral. Using first-principles density functional theory combined with molecular dynamics, we develop here several simulations on different systems in order to understand the reactivity of the carbon surface in low or ultra-high confinement. According to our calculations, there is high affinity of the carbon atom to the hydrogen ion in every situation, and to a lesser extent for the hydroxyl ion. The latter can only occur when the first hydrogen attack has been achieved. As a consequence, the functionalization of the carbon surface in the presence of an aqueous medium is activated by its protonation, then allowing the reactivity of the anion.
Mots clés
carbon nanotube, confinement, functionalization, graphene, quantum simulations
Référence
Nanomaterials (Basel). 2021 Jan 25;11(2):