Polymer grafting of carbon black (CB) has been intensely researched as polymer modificationi so ne of the effective means for improving the solubility and compatibility of carbon black. Recent advances in the polymer grafting methods allow the introduction of polymers with well controlled composition, structure and molecular weight onto the surface of CB. In addition, modification by functional polymers provides ap owerful impetus to extend the applications of polymer-CB composites such as sensitive materials. This review focuses on the development of these grafting polymerization methods and some novel applications of polymer grafted CB.
1I ntroductionCarbon black (CB) is the aggregate of carbon nanoparticles having ad iameter distribution from 10 to 400 nanometers. It is composed of 90 to 99 %c arbon and other elements such as oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulfur. CB has been widely applied as pigments, reinforcingagent of rubber (Mahapatra and Tripathy, 2006), electromagnetic interference shielding materials (Mohanraj et al., 2006), antistatic materials and positive temperature coefficient materials (Oakey et al., 1999). Although it is so useful, the poor dispersibility and compatibility of CB in polymer matrices and solvents (especially in water) are still drawbacks that have to be overcome.The poor dispersibility and compatibility of CB are usually attributed to the strong tendency of CB nanoparticles to undergo agglomeration due to Van der Waals interactions.To improve the stability of CB in solvents and polymer matrices, many approaches such as oxidation of CB (by ozone, nitric oxide, oxygen, fluorine, hydrogen peroxide or sodium hypochlorite solution) and physical encapsulation of CB by polymers or surfactants were employed (Bechthold et al., 2000;Gabrielli et al., 1996;Li et al., 2003a;Li et al., 2005; Nagai et al., 1999;Xu et al., 2005). However, CB treated by these methods lacks the long-term dispersibility or compatibility.The oxidation effect will diminish when encountering impurities, and the physical encapsulation is also unreliable for the progressive detachment of polymers or surfactants from CB particles. Compared to the above methods, polymer grafting has been proved to be apromising approach to improve the solubility of CB. In this paper, the development of polymer grafting strategies to functionalize CB and some novel applications of polymer grafted CB were reviewed.
2P olymer Grafting MethodCB is composed of quasi-graphitic structural units and each carbon atom in the quasi-graphite lamella is on the symmetrical hexagon plane. The arrangement of the quasi-graphite lamella is out of order. CB primarily consists of carbon but heteroatoms, for example, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen would mingle in CB during its preparation.T hese heteroatoms exist in avariety of functional groups that include carboxyl, hydroxyl, quinone and lactonic group, which are the predominant functionalites on the surface of CB (Langley et al., 2006), as illustrated in Fig. 1.Because of the strong Van der Waals interacti...