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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesCarbon nanotube sidewalls are not necessarily electrochemically inert. In a 2012 nanoscale study, researchers detected fast electron transfer at both the sidewalls and closed ends of pristine carbon nanotubes—without activating or processing them. The result challenged a common explanation that activity mainly comes from open ends and defects, but it does not prove that every nanotube surface is active under every condition.
Why nanotube electrochemistry was disputed
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are often discussed as promising electrode materials, but researchers have disagreed about which parts of a tube actually transfer electrons. One influential interpretation held that intact sidewalls contribute little, and that measured activity instead comes from open tube ends, edge-like defects, or impurities.
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In 2005, Banks, Davies, Wildgoose, and Compton argued that much of graphitic carbon’s catalytic activity and electron transfer occurs at surface defects, particularly edge-plane-like sites. They also questioned claims that CNT-modified electrodes have special catalytic properties. Read the 2005 article.
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A 2009 review described the evidence as unsettled: literature often presumed sidewall inertness, while studies of well-characterized single-walled nanotubes indicated sidewall activity. It identified CNT type, impurities, electrode-fabrication processing, and experimental arrangement as factors that can produce different results. Read the 2009 review. A separate critical minireview by Martin Pumera also cautioned that apparent CNT electrochemical activity may arise from defects or impurities. Read the minireview.
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How the 2012 study tested CNT sites
Thomas S. Miller, Neil Ebejer, Aleix G. Güell, Julie V. Macpherson, and Patrick R. Unwin reported their findings in Chemical Communications in 2012. Their paper, “Electrochemistry at carbon nanotube forests: sidewalls and closed ends allow fast electron transfer,” was submitted on 23 April, accepted on 11 May, and first published on 14 May 2012; it appears in volume 48, pages 7435–7437. See the paper record and abstract.
The team grew dense forests of pristine, closed-end CNTs by chemical vapour deposition. To examine specific locations without cutting or processing the tubes, they used a nanopipet electrochemical cell: a tiny cell formed by filling a double-barrelled nanopipette with electrolyte and redox species, then flowing current between the barrels. Chemistry World’s contemporaneous account describes the approach.
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What the researchers found—and what it means
The authors reported fast electron transfer at both closed ends and sidewalls of the pristine CNT forest, without activation or processing. The observation directly challenges a universal rule that intact CNT sidewalls are electrochemically inactive. It shows that sidewalls can support fast transfer in the system they measured; it does not show that defects and ends are unimportant in other samples or reactions.
The distinction matters because a site-specific nanoscale measurement is not interchangeable with an ensemble measurement on a fabricated CNT electrode. Processing, impurities, tube type, and measurement geometry can change which sites are exposed or contribute to the result. The 2012 finding therefore supports a context-dependent view rather than a single explanation for all CNT electrochemistry.
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Why the result did not settle the debate
In the contemporaneous coverage, electroanalytical CNT expert Gareth Keeley called the study “a very interesting and exciting paper,” but said its challenge to the importance of open ends would be unlikely to gain wide acceptance until the result was demonstrated using inner-sphere redox probes. That was a caution about the evidence needed to generalize the claim, not proof that the experiment was invalid.
The key open question is how broadly the result carries across probe chemistry and CNT preparations. The available evidence does not establish whether later studies resolved Keeley’s inner-sphere-probe concern or determine a current field-wide consensus. A review published around 2025 continues to describe disagreement over edge/defect and sidewall interpretations and notes that oxidation and oxygen-containing surface groups can create or alter active sites; it does not, on the evidence available here, settle the specific 2012 critique. See the later review.
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