Differences in the response of the near-infrared absorbance spectra of single-walled carbon nanotubes; Effects of chirality and wrapping polymers

Abstract

We detected antioxidant activity of catechin, one of the main components of tea, using SWNTs surface coated with two different biomolecules. Compared to coating with DNA already reported, it can hardly be detected when coated with carboxymethyl cellulose. For nanobiosensing using SWNTs, its sensitivity is not determined only by SWNTs, we found that biomolecules covering the surface are extremely important. In this experiment, we measured the near-infrared absorption spectra of SWNTs coated separately with two different water-soluble polymers; DNA (double-stranded DNA-SWNT complexes) and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC, CMC-SWNT complexes), and uncovered the differences in their antioxidant properties against the flavonoid catechin. Each dispersion was oxidized with H₂O₂ at 0.03% (final concentration), following which catechin solutions were added to reduce the samples. Our results showed that the magnitude of the change in the absorbance spectra for dsDNA-SWNT complexes in response to oxidation and reduction was superior to that for CMC-SWNT complexes. The CMC-SWNT complexes exhibited almost no change in their spectra even though the same SWNT powder (produced by the high-pressure carbon monoxide (HiPco) method) was used. On the other hand, when (6, 5)-enriched SWNT powder produced by the ComoCat method was used, no significant change in the absorbance was observed, even though (6, 5)-enriched SWNTs are frequently used for nanobiosensing. Our results revealed that both the SWNT chirality and type of polymer for wrapping SWNTs are important factors for establishing nanobiosensing methods utilizing SWNTs.

Keywords: Carbon nanotubes; Carboxymethyl-cellulose; Catechin; DNA; Near-infrared; Redox.