Chemical functionalization of 'toxic' long carbon nanotubes reduces effective length, reduce asbestos-like pathogenicity
Monday, January 21, 2013 - 08:00
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org)—Carbon nanotubes resemble asbestos fibers in their form. Unfortunately, long, pure nanotubes also seem to have asbestos-like pathogenicity. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a European research team has now reported that chemical modifications, for example with tri(ethylene glycol), can alleviate this problem if the modification makes their surface more water-friendly and reduces the effective length of the tubes.