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What are the intermolecular forces that can be found in Carbon Nanotubes?

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  • $\begingroup$ 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. $\endgroup$ Oct 8, 2014 at 14:03
  • $\begingroup$ The intermolecular forces between the molecules. $\endgroup$
    – Achro
    Oct 8, 2014 at 14:04

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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

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  • $\begingroup$ 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
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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.

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