Theoretical prediction for the encapsulation of TiO<inf>2</inf>nanoparticles into carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes and titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2) are well-known nanostructures which offer the means to create many new and novel nanoscale devices. The encapsulation of a TiO2molecule into a single-walled carbon nanotube may provide the ideas for the development in targeted drug delivery process. This paper aims to investigate the relation between the potential molecular interaction energy of the system versus the radii of TiO2molecule and the nanotube. The Lennard-Jones potential function together with the continuous approximation is employed to determine the molecular interaction energy between the TiO2molecule and the carbon nanotube. The suction energy, which is the energy acquired by the molecule in the encapsulation, for a particular TiO2molecular radius is presented. An accumulation of TiO2clusters at only one end of the open nanotube is observed in experiments, so the interaction energy between two TiO2nanoparticles is also examined. The results presented here are based on work by the present authors appearing in [1, 2]. © 2010 IEEE.