In situ and fast detection of single-walled carbon nanotubes by using DNA mediated aggregation method and quartz crystal microbalance

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted great interest from scientific interest to industrial areas. Due to the toxicity effect of CNTs, assessment methods for CNTs are one of the noticeable issues. In this work, we report the in situ and fast detection of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) by using a quartz crystal microbalance. The detection is based on DNA hybridization between the DNA on a quartz electrode and the DNA of aggregated SWCNTs. It is shown that our detection tool is capable of the in situ and fast detection of 5 min with the limit of detection (LOD) of 10 ng ml(-1) in distilled water. Furthermore, our detection tool is able to detect SWCNTs in a real practical sample of tap water with the LOD of 100 ng ml(-1). Our work sheds light on a direct monitoring tool that could detect and assess the toxicity of SWCNTs in a real environment. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.