(691c) Effects of Acid Treatment On Structure, Properties and Biocompatibility of Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) applications in fields as diverse as electronics, optics, nanotechnology, materials science of biomedical industry rely on improved understanding of CNTs physical structures and chemical properties as well as control over their user and environment compatibility. User-controlled strategies that allow changes in physical and chemical properties of CNTs can lead to improved performance of CNTs-based technologies in any of the fields of applications listed above. Herein we carried out a systematic investigation on how acid liquid oxidation treatment changes CNTs physical and chemical properties to lead to nanomaterials with increased biocompatibility. Specifically, by exposing CNTs to strong acid mixtures (sulfuric and nitric acid), we generated user-controlled libraries of CNTs with different characteristics, as recorded and analyzed using Raman energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and solubility tests. Systematically characterized CNTs were subsequently tested for their biocompatibility in relation to human epithelial cells (BEAS-2B) or enzymes. Such selected examples are building pertinent relationships between CNTs biocompatibility and their intrinsic properties and suggest that acid oxidation treatment reduces CNTs toxicity. Further, such user-tailored libraries of CNTs with controlled physico-chemical properties can serve as the next generation of nanosupports to provide feasible platforms to be used for biomedical applications or the next generation of biosensors and diagnose tools.