Determination of the acidic sites of purified single-walled carbon nanotubes by acid–base titration

We report the measurement of the acidic sites in three different samples of commercially available full-length purified single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) – as obtained from CarboLex (CLI), Carbon Solutions (CSI) and Tubes@Rice (TAR) – by simple acid–base titration methods. Titration of the purified SWNTs with NaOH and NaHCO3 solutions was used to determine the total percentage of acidic sites and carboxylic acid groups, respectively. The total percentage of acidic sites in full length purified SWNTs from TAR, CLI and CSI are about 1–3%.