A one-pot procedure for the synthesis of polyethylene tethered on multi-walled carbon nanotubes by in

situ

ethylene copolymerization with an olefin-type comonomer

α

-alkene functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MW — CH = CH

2

) is reported. The covalent linkage between polyethylene and multi-walled carbon nanotubes is demonstrated. The MWCNTs are chemically oxidized first by a strong oxidizing agent and then functionalized with chlorocarbonyl groups (MW—COCl)

via

reacting with thionyl chloride. The MW—CH=CH

2

are obtained by esterification of ω-undecylenyl

alcohol with MW—COCl. The MW—CH=CH

2

may serve as olefin-type comonomers to further synthesize core-shell structured copolymers with a multi-walled carbon nanotubes core grafted with side chains of polyethylene

via rac

-(en)(THInd)

2

ZrCl

2

copolymerization catalyst. The core-shell structured nanocomposites were characterized by means of

1

H-NMR

SEM

FTIR and TGA. The results confirmed the formation of polyethylene chains growing from the surface of multi-walled carbon nanotubes.