Recent Advances in Carbon Nanotube Catalysts

Dear Colleagues,

The advent of the so-called “nanotechnology revolution” has produced an incessant search for new materials with nanometer dimensions, which display peculiar properties as compared to their bulk counterparts. Among the plethora of nanomaterials today available, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) represent a very symbolic material, which have enjoyed popularity in science fiction, novels and TV shows. Discovered in 1991, CNTs created an immediate breakthrough among diverse scientific communities in relation to their outstanding properties, that instantly projected them as future leading candidates in several applications. Such properties include a very high electron mobility, dependant on their size/surface ratio, which has found fertile soil in organic photovoltaics, integrated circuits, fuel cells and capacitors. Their inertness, mechanical, thermal stability and tuneable topography can be an asset in heterogeneous catalysis. Their distinct optical/spectroscopic properties have been used in biosensing, while in medicine they have been used as connecting mats in neural cells or as drug delivery vehicles. Since the initial years after their discovery, the number of publications involving CNTs has rocketed, involving many fields of research: Chemistry, medicine, physics, engineering, biology, and so on. They have become exceptional components in many composites or hybrids, where their properties can be synergistically interfaced with other structures. CNTs are still undoubted protagonists in nanotechnology research, and the bulk of new insights together with the progress of characterization techniques and computing science is revealing that much has yet to come. New synthetic protocols for CNTs and the broad interest have already caused a drop of the cost of these carbon nanostructures, and new discoveries will continue to propel CNTs as valuable building blocks in the assembly of materials with unprecedented properties.

This Special Issue of Catalysts aims at defining the new frontiers of this fascinating material, with an emphasis on the benefits of using CNTs in the formulation of high performance heterogeneous catalysts. While catalysis will be the main subject, the issue will feature those studies with some novelty in the modification of CNTs for other applications.

Dr. Michele Melchionna
Prof. Paolo Fornasiero
Guest Editor

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• Carbon nanotubes
• Heterogeneous catalysis
• Photocatalysis
• Electrocatalysis
• Supports