The investigation of interactions between single walled carbon nanotubes and flexible chain molecules

Anisotropic nanoparticles, such as inorganic nanowires and carbon nanotubes, are promising materials for a wide range of technological applications including transparent conductors, thin film transistors, photovoltaic materials, and chemical sensors. For many of these applications, the starting point requires dispersing the nanoparticles in solution using a surfactant, and amphiphilic polymers of various types are frequently employed for this purpose. In addition to colloidal stability, such polymers can control surface adsorption, aggregation and in some instances, select particular diameters or chemical species for stabilization. A central challenge is how to predict the ability of a polymer to adsorb and stabilize a nanorod dispersion based on the chemical composition of the polymer. There is currently no quantitative theory capable of linking chemical structure to colloidal dispersion for nanorod systems. The goal of this thesis is to develop the first such model and to verify it experimentally. Applications to DNA oligonucleotide detection and specifically single nucleotide polymorphism using a fluorescent single walled carbon nanotube construct are explored. To address this goal, a high throughput experimental platform was developed to map the dispersion of a phenylated dextran polymer system as a function of polymer volume fraction and percent phenylation. A total of 12 compositionally distinct polymers were combined in 8 different concentrations at three different molecular weights (10, 70 and 500 kDa) with single walled carbon nanotubes in aqueous solution. The resulting mixtures were ultra-sonicated and centrifuged for 1 hour.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Chemical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Jeng, Esther Shu-Hsien

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Michael S. Strano.

• Chemical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/58063

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/58063