Incorporation of hexamethylmelamine inside capped carbon nanotubes

Abstract

A carbon nano-bottle structure was formed by sealing the opened end of carbon nanotubes (CNT) after loading the antitumor agent hexamethylmelamine (HMM). The experiment employed a two-step nano-extraction for compound loading in which opened CNTs were first incubated with a saturated HMM aqueous solution and, owing to the poor affinity of HMM to water, the dissolved drug can be successfully extracted by CNTs. The second step suspended CNTs in a saturated C60/ethanol solution to remove the drug that was un-specifically absorbed on the surface of the nanotubes but, due to the low solubility of C60 in ethanol, preserved the tubes from the removal of the caps. The results show that by using extractable caps CNTs can be used as carriers for drug delivery and also for release of bioactive agents.