Gram-scale preparation of surfactant-free, carboxylic acid groups functionalized, individual single-walled carbon nanotubes in aqueous solution.

We report a simple method to prepare individual electric arc-produced single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) in aqueous solution on a large scale through three steps of processing: refluxing in concentrated HNO(3), low speed centrifugation, and high speed centrifugation. The bulk production (10 g of starting SWNTs) results in a concentration of 0.2 mg/mL individual SWNTs stably dispersed in DI-H(2)O without any external protection. The atomic force microscopy images show that the aqueous dispersion contained approximately 80% individual SWNTs with lengths ranging from 500 nm to 1 micrometer. It is found that the stable individual SWNT dispersion has an absolute zeta potential value of approximately 72 mV with a concentration of 0.05 mg/mL at pH 5. We believe that it is this high zeta potential resulting from an electrical double layer which produces the repulsion to overcome the van der Waals attraction thereby keeping the SWNTs individually dispersed. The free-standing film prepared from the individual SWNT dispersion exhibits a 4-probe electrical conductivity of approximately 2000 S/cm and a transmittance of 60% at 550 nm.