A Solid-State Chemistry Approach to Sense Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons From Environment Using Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes

Solid-state functionalization of single-wall carbon nanotubes with hydrocarbons, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, is a potent viable approach for not only the characterization of new nano-structured materials but also the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at nanoscale. The proposed green functionalization process paves an insight that the molecular diffusion is directly linked with the availability of delocalized pi-electrons of hydrocarbons. The observation paves an important clue to design polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon sensor at solid phase.