Alignment of Surface Modified Inorganic Nanofiber, Imogolite, by Langmuir-Blodgett Technique

Abstract

Imogolite is an aluminosilicate nanofiber material with chemical composition of (HO)3Al2O3SiOH. Surface of Imogolite was modified with phenylphosphonic acid (PPA) and polypyrrole (PPY). These molecules on the surface modified Imogolite can be used as a barrier for bundling of pure Imogolite. As the hydrophobic nature of surface modified Imogolite helps to disperse well in toluene, certain amount of well dispersed surface modified Imogolite in toluene can be spread on the air/water interface. During the compression on the Langmuir Blodgett trough, surface modified Imogolite fibers are aligned with constant nano spacing which is caused by tight contact of molecules on the Imogolite surface. The aligned fuzzy fibers are transferred to the substrate and observed by STM. The perfect alignment of surface modified Imogolite fibers has regular spacing of 7.2 nm.