Carbon nanotube functionalisation

A. Bianco, K. Kostarelos, C. D. Partidos, and M. Prato, Biomedical applications of functionalised carbon nanotubes, Chem. Commun. (2005) 571-577. 

Bianco, A., Kostarelos, K., Partidos, C. D., and Prato, M. 2005. Biomedical applica-tions of functionalised carbon nanotubes. Chemical Communications 5 571-77. 

Scheme 2.1 Examples of noncovalent functionalisation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with different biomolecules...

In recent years, CNTs have been receiving considerable attention because of their potential use in biomedical applications. Solubility of CNTs in aqueous media is a fundamental prerequisite to increase their biocompatibility. For this purpose several methods of dispersion and solubilisation have been developed leading to chemically modified CNTs (see Paragraph 2). The modification of carbon nanotubes also provides multiple sites for the attachment of several kinds of molecules, making functionalised CNTs a promising alternative for the delivery of therapeutic compounds. 

Georgakilas V, Tagmatarchis N, Pantarotto D, Bianco A, Briand JP, Prato M (2002) Amino acid functionalisation of water soluble carbon nanotubes. Chem. Commun. 3050-3051. 

Pastorin G, Wu W, Wieckowski S, Briand JP, Kostarelos K, Prato M, Bianco A (2006) Double functionalisation of carbon nanotubes for multimodal drug delivery. Chem. Commun. 1182-1184. 

Bissett, M.A., et al., Dye functionalisation of PAMAM-type dendrons grown from vertically aligned single-walled carbon nanotube arrays for tight harvesting antennae. Journal of Materials Chemistry, 2011. 21(46) p. 18597-18604. 

Chemical force microscopy (CFM) [26] is a progression from the physicochemical based detection of LFM to specific chemical detection. CFM performs the nanoscale chemical analysis of the sample, through the measurement of forces related to specific chemical interaction between a chemically functionalised tip (e.g., with carbon nanotubes or oligonucleotides) and a surface that is chemically functionalised with complementary (or non-complementary) chemical species, e.g., complementary oligonucleotides. 

Raman spectroscopy has been successfully used to detect nanomolar concentrations of biologically relevant molecules, to distinguish between structurally similar peptides (e.g. aEp3 and a5pi integrins [22]) and also to detect peptide S-nitrosylation and phosphorylation [23, 24]. Raman spectroscopy has been used to determine the functionalisation of carbon nanotubes and other particles with bioactive peptides (e.g. RGD), whereby their biofunctionalisation has enabled their accumulation at specific sites (e.g. tumours) within small animal models [25]. Furthermore, the in vivo distribution and... 

An other interesting strategy is the modification of the surface of the electrodes with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) or single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) [13,32]. The MWNTs are grown on the electrodes covered with a nickel catalyst film by plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition and encapsulated in Si02 dielectrics with only the end exposed at the surface to form an inlaid nanoelectrode array [13]. In the other case, commercial SWNTs are deposited on SPE surface by evaporation [32], The carbon nanotubes are functionalised with ssDNA probes by covalent attachment. This kind of modification shows a very efficient hybridisation and, moreover, the carbon nanotubes improve the analytical signal. 

Non-covalent functionalised carbon nanotubes as highly specific electronic biosensors... 

Carbon Nanotube Transistors - Chemical Functionalisation and Device Characterisation... 

Coated and functionalised single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) as gas sensors... 

Abstract This chapter focuses on the performances of gas sensors based on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs).The chapter first reviews chemiresistor and field-effect transistor sensor architectures. Theoretical models based on doping effect and Schottky barrier modulation are correlated to the percolation of metallic carbon nanotubes. The functionalisation strategies of carbon nanotubes, used to acquire a gas selectivity, are discussed and offer promising application for the monitoring of air quality, or military and medical applications. 

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