DNA Mediated Solubilization of Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes

DNA has been recognized as an efficient dispersion agent that individually exfoliate and chirality-fractionate single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) according to their diameter and metallicity. Amongst, single stranded d(GT)_n DNA has been known to efficiently disperse individual-level nanotube and mediate their subsequent chirality separation, when eluted from an anion exchange column at various salt concentrations. However, the cost for typical synthetic oligomer, ranging ~25,000$/g, hinders the bulk-scale solubilization and separation of SWCNTs. In this paper, we present a solubilization and separation study of SWCNTs by using salmon sperm DNA (SaDNA), which costs 20$/g as a byproduct from the fishing industry. We show that the SaDNA exfoliates and disperses SWCNTs on a comparable level to d(GT)_n oligomer. The NIR and resonance Raman analysis from the solubilized nanotube samples will be presented along with the chirality dependent separation results from SaDNA mediated SWCNT dispersion.