Interactions of single-walled carbon nanotubes with monosaccharides

Closed-end single-walled carbon nanotubes were wetted in aqueous solutions of monosaccharides, forming weak surface complexes, as proven by the estimation of the content of monosaccharides in complexes isolated from aqueous solutions. The complexation was confirmed by micro-Raman spectroscopy. The Gaussian 03 (Molecular Mechanics UFF method) computations of total energy of the single-walled carbon nanotube-monosaccharides inclusion and surface complexes showed that inclusion complexes should be more stable than corresponding surface complexes. Computed total energies for particular complexes pointed to a lack of preferences for the formation of complexes with either alpha- or beta-tautomers and either pyranoses or furanoses. The forms preferred in the formation of the surface complexes usually differ from these favored in the formation of the inclusion complexes.