American Chemical Society 234th National Meeting & Exposition
August 19-23, 2007
Barron Group Abstracts
Sidewall Functionalization of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWNTs) with Amino Acids of Different Chain Length and Their Aqueous Solubility over a Wide pH Range
Liling Zeng, Department of Chemistry, Rice University, 6100 S. Main, Houston, TX
77005, and Andrew R. Barron, Department of Chemistry, Smalley Institute for
Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University
We prepared amino acid functionalized Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes (SWNTs), SWNT-NH-(CH2)n-COOH, (n=1, 5, 10), with fluorinated SWNTs. TGA and XPS studies show similar level of functionalization. However, the solubility in water is controlled by the length of the hydrocarbon side chain (i.e., n). The 6-aminohexanoic acid derivative (AHA-SWNT) is the only one soluble in aqueous solution (0.5 mg/mL). The pH dependence of its solubility appears to be controlled only by the pKa of the acid and the ionic strength of the solution. The water soluble AHA-SWNTs has potential applications in drug delivery and sensors fabrication.