Monday, May 19, 2008
Student Union Building, Upper (Queensborough Community College)
359

DNA Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes as Active Stabilizers: Conducting Polymer Nanocomposites with Enhanced Stabiliy

William Cheung1, Yufeng Ma1, Guangru Mao1, and Huixin He2. (1) Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, (2) Rutgers University, Newark Campus, Newark, NJ

Short lifetime has been a thorny problem for chemical and biosensors, and light emitting devices consisting of organic (polymer) materials. In this work, a water-soluble self-doped polyaniline nanocomposite was fabricated by in-situ polymerization of 3-aminophenylboronic acid monomers in the presence of single-stranded DNA dispersed- and functionalized- single-walled carbon nanotubes. For the first time, we found that carbon nanotubes act as novel active stabilizers. This is possibly due to DNA functionalization: they reduced the polyaniline backbone from the unstable, degradable, fully oxidized pernigraniline state to the stable, conducting emeraldine state, which significantly improves the chemical stability of the self-doped polyaniline against the harsh UV irradiation.