Cytotoxicity screening of single-walled carbon nanotubes: detection and removal of cytotoxic contaminants from carboxylated carbon nanotubes.

This study compares the cytotoxicity to cultured mammalian cells of nine different single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) products synthesized by a variety of methods and obtained from a cross section of vendors. A standard procedure involving sonication and centrifugation in buffered bovine serum albumin was developed to disperse all the SWNTs in a biocompatible solution to facilitate comparisons. The effect of the SWNTs on the proliferative ability of a standard cell line was then assessed. Of the nine different SWNT materials tested, only two were significantly toxic, and both were functionalized by carboxylation from different vendors. This was unexpected because carboxylation makes SWNTs more water-soluble, which would presumably correlate with better biocompatibility. However, additional purification work demonstrated that the toxic material in the carboxylated SWNT preparations could be separated from the SWNTs by filtration. The filtrate that contained the toxic activity also contained abundant small carbon fragments that had Raman signatures characteristic of amorphous carbon species, suggesting a correlation between toxicity and oxidized carbon fragments. The removal of a toxic contaminant associated with carboxylated SWNTs is important in the development of carboxylated SWNTs for pharmacological applications.