Carbon nanotubes, phthalocyanines and porphyrins: attractive hybrid materials for electrocatalysis and electroanalysis.

The manuscript discusses different ways of forming hybrid materials between single (SWCNT) or multi (MWCNT) walled carbon nanotubes and biomimetic compounds such as metalloporphyrins, metallophthalocyanines and other MN4 complexes. The hybrid materials are employed for electrocatalysis of reactions such as oxygen and hydrogen peroxide reduction, nitric oxide oxidation, oxidation of thiols and other pollutants. Methods of characterizing the hybrid materials such as cyclic voltammetry (CV), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) are discussed.