What are the intermolecular forces that can be found in Carbon Nanotubes?
2
-
$\begingroup$ I am unfortunately not really getting what you are asking. Are you asking about the bonds between the carbons, or the forces that are inside a nanotube, or are you asking about the molecular forces between nanotubes? It would not hurt if you could expand your question a little. $\endgroup$– Martin - マーチン ♦Oct 8, 2014 at 14:03
-
$\begingroup$ The intermolecular forces between the molecules. $\endgroup$– AchroOct 8, 2014 at 14:04
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
1
There is known, but poorly understood $\pi-\pi$ stacking. While weak compared to covalent, dipole or ionic interactions, it still beats usual van-der-vaals interactions.
Carbon nanotubes are, essentially, polycondensed aromatical systems, so they can and would interact with each other as aromatic systems via $\pi-\pi$ stacking
-
$\begingroup$ To be fair, $\pi-\pi$ stacking are often considered one type of dispersion interactions. Since large conjugated systems like nanotubes have very high polarizabilities, the dispersion interactions are fairly large. $\endgroup$ Oct 10, 2014 at 2:27
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
Carbon nanotubes are not polar or ionic. Therefore I do not expect any ion or dipole intermolecular interactions. Since carbon has electrons, that only leaves us with dispersion forces (induced-dipole). Therefore carbon nanotubes exhibit dispersion as the only intermolecular force.
answered Oct 8, 2014 at 13:52