Particle surface design using an all-dry encapsulation method

An innovative dry polymer-encapsulation process, initiated CVD (iCVD), for micro- and nanoparticles was investigated. It was shown that microparticles and nanotubes well below 100 μm in size can be completely encapsulated with a clean polymer coating using iCVD without particle agglomeration. It was found that iCVD can handle asymmetric particles with high aspect ratios, which for these nanotubes range between 1000 and 10,000. The polymer-encapsulation process was found to provide a useful way to surface functionalize nanotubes in a noncovalent fashion without destroying the sp² nature of the nanotubes. The results show that iCVD provides the ability to encapsulate fine particles down to the nanoscale using an all-dry method, and offers versatility in designing particle surfaces with precise functional groups by directly incorporating the functionality into the polymer chemistry.