2010 Annual Meeting
(518b) Length Distributions of Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes in Aqueous Suspensions Measured by Electrospray-Differential Mobility Analysis
Authors
Leonard F. Pease - Presenter, University of Utah
De-Hao Tsai - Presenter, University of Maryland and NIST
Barry J. Bauer - Presenter, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Rebecca A. Zangmeister - Presenter, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Michael Zachariah - Presenter, University of Maryland
Michael J. Tarlov - Presenter, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Although an understanding of the geometric properties of SWCNTs, including length, diameter, aspect ratio, and chirality, is essential for commercial applications, rapid characterization of nanotube length distributions remains challenging. Here the use of electrospray differential mobility analysis (ES-DMA) to obtain length distributions of DNA-wrapped SWCNTs dispersed in aqueous solutions is demonstrated. Lengths measured by ES-DMA compare favorably with those obtained from multiangle light scattering, dynamic light scattering, field flow fractionation with UV/vis detection, and atomic force microscopy, validating ES-DMA as a technique to measure SWCNTs of <250 nm in length.