Influence of chirality of carbon nanotubes to human cell

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been attracting increasing attention for the possibilities of their widespread applications in the field of engineering. On the other hand, the research on the influence of CNTs on human organisms is still scarce. Among the limited studies, some indicate that CNTs have genotoxicity or cytotoxicity similar to asbestos. In order to further investigate the toxicity of CNTs, we proposed a new way of biocompatibility evaluation by examining the relation between biocompatibility and structure of CNTs by both experiments and analysis using Gaussian 09. As a result from the cell culture, it is expected that armchair CNTs have high possibility of making changes to behavior of cells, such as cell proliferation and viability. This may result into armchair CNTs affecting biocompatibility. On top of that, the results of analysis by Gaussian 09 showed the total energy difference between each chirality, which could have led to the experimental result.