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Surface effects on NH3 adsorption Bonding interactions between ammonia and carbon nanotubes depend strongly on the nature of the nanotubes' surfaces, according to a study that addresses fundamental issues in nanotube-based chemical sensing. Discrepancies between earlier theoretical studies, which indicate that ammonia bonds to nanotubes weakly, and experimental studies, which point to robust bonding, led Eric Borguet, associate professor of chemistry at Temple University, Philadelphia, and coworkers to probe the influence of sample preparation and other factors on ammonia adsorption by using experimental and theoretical methods. Working with scientists at Temple; the University of Pittsburgh; and Emory University, Atlanta, Borguet has found that pristine samples, such as those considered in the earlier theoretical work, bind ammonia weakly. In contrast, the presence of surface defect sites or oxygen-containing functional groups, such as that shown, leads to a several-fold increase in binding energy, the team reports (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005, 127, 10533). |
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