Large-scale production of homogeneous helical amylose/SWNTs complexes with good biocompatibility

The key to developing novel applications of SWNTs in biotechnology and biomedicine is to improve their biocompatibility and solubility in water and to assemble them into useful architectures. We describe how amylose can help to solubilize SWNTs and wrap around SWNTs into helical superstructures with periodic pitch. FT-IR, Raman spectroscopy, H-1 NMR and HR-TEM are used to confirm the generation of amylose/ SWNTs complexes (A/S-C). It is demonstrated that most of the A/S-C have similar diameters (ca. 20-30 nm) and a helical morphology with a pitch of ca. 14 nm. A test of Hela cell viability revealed that the A/S-C had much better biocompatibility than SWNTs.