Strong Electrochemiluminescence Emission from Oxidized Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as well-known nanomaterials are extensively studied and widely applied in various fields. Nitric acid (HNO₃ ) is often used to treat CNTs for purification purposes and preparing oxidized CNTs for various applications. However, too little attention is paid to investigating the effect of HNO₃ treatment on the optical properties of CNTs. In this work, it is observed for the first time that HNO₃ -oxidized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (ox-MWCNTs) have strong electrochemiluminescence (ECL) activity, which enables ox-MWCNTs to become new and good ECL carbon nanomaterials after carbon quantum dots (CQDs) and graphene quantum dots (GQDs). Various characterization technologies, such as transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman spectroscopy, are used to reveal the relationship between ECL activity and surface states. The ECL behaviors of ox-MWCNTs are investigated in detail and a possible ECL mechanism is proposed. Finally, the new ECL nanomaterials of ox-MWCNTs are envisioned to have promising applications in sensitive ECL sensing and in the study of CNT-based catalysts.