Carbon nanotubes are widely employed in various applications because of its excellent properties. However, they generally suffer from the low dispersion into aqueous solutions. Many applications of carbon nanotubes require previous surface functionalisation. In present study, we report the surface functionalisation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) by grafting a tris(2-aminoethyl)amine (TAA) via a facile method. The pristine MWCNTs and TAA-functionalised MWCNTs (MWCNTs-TAA) are characterised by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The TEM image of MWCNTs-TAA exhibits significantly improved dispersion of the MWCNTs. The high-resolution FE-SEM images clearly show the opening ends of nanotubes after TAA functionalisation. The increase in nanotube diameters of MWCNTs-TAA is observed compared to the pristine MWCNTs. The strong absorption peak at 1530 cm⁻¹ from FTIR spectra for MWCNTs-TAA indicates that the amine groups are successfully grafted onto the surface of MWCNTs. The TGA curves of MWCNTs-TAA reveal a weight loss in the temperature range of 200 to 450 C attributed to the decomposition of the amine groups, and the highest weight loss is obtained to be 22.14 wt% after 12 h reaction time. This work demonstrates the facile and efficient method to functionalise MWCNTs with TAA.

碳纳米管因其优异的性能而被广泛应用于各种应用中。然而，它们通常具有在水溶液中的低分散性。碳纳米管的许多应用需要事先进行表面功能化。在本研究中，我们通过一种简便的方法接枝三（2-氨基乙基）胺（TAA）来报告多壁碳纳米管（MWCNT）的表面功能化。原始多壁碳纳米管和 TAA 功​​能化多壁碳纳米管 (MWCNTs-TAA) 的特征在于场发射扫描电子显微镜 (FE-SEM)、透射电子显微镜 (TEM)、傅里叶变换红外 (FTIR) 和拉曼光谱、热重分析 (TGA) ）。MWCNTs-TAA 的 TEM 图像显示出 MWCNTs 的分散性显着改善。高分辨率 FE-SEM 图像清楚地显示了 TAA 功​​能化后纳米管的开口端。与原始 MWCNTs 相比，观察到 MWCNTs-TAA 的纳米管直径增加。1530 cm 处的强吸收峰^-1来自 MWCNTs-TAA 的 FTIR 光谱表明胺基团成功接枝到 MWCNTs 表面。MWCNTs-TAA 的 TGA 曲线显示，由于胺基团的分解，在 200 至 450 ℃ 的温度范围内重量损失，并且在 12 小时反应时间后获得的重量损失最高为 22.14 wt%。这项工作展示了用 TAA 功​​能化多壁碳纳米管的简便有效的方法。