Laboratoire de Physique Théorique
Toulouse - UMR 5152

In an letter published in J. Phys. Chem. Lett., T. Hennequin and M. Manghi of the LPT have theoretically studied, in collaboration with researchers of the Charles Coulomb Laboratory of Montpellier, the transport of ions in water through a CNT. CNTs are very interesting materials in condensed mattter due to their mechanical stiffness, thermal conductivity, and chemical reactivity. Their outstanding electronic properties (finite quasi-1D electronic density of states (DOS), metallic or semiconducting character) are here used in the context of electrolyte transport. The ionic conductivity through the CNT is modulated when a gate voltage is applied to the CNT. Because quantum capacitance can control this transport for CNT with a nanometric radius, the DOS can leave a direct imprint on how the conductivity depends on the gate voltage. This approach provides key insight into why metallic CNTs have larger experimentally measured conductivities than semi-conducting ones.

T. Hennequin et al. Influence of the Quantum Capacitance on Electrolyte Conductivity through Carbon Nanotubes J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 15 2177-2183 (2024)

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac...