Abstract

Single-mol. fluorescent microscopy allows semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) to detect the adsorption and desorption of single adsorbate mols. as a stochastic modulation of emission intensity. In this study, we identify and assign the signature of the complex decompn. and reaction pathways of riboflavin in the presence of the free radical scavenger Trolox using DNA-wrapped SWCNT sensors dispersed onto an aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) coated surface. SWCNT emission is quenched by riboflavin-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS), but increases upon the adsorption of Trolox, which functions as a reductive brightening agent. Riboflavin has two parallel reaction pathways, a Trolox oxidizer and a photosensitizer for singlet oxygen and superoxide generation. The resulting reaction network can be detected in real time in the vicinity of a single SWCNT and can be completely described using elementary reactions and kinetic rate consts. measured independently. The reaction mechanism results in an oscillatory fluorescence response from each SWCNT, allowing for the simultaneous detection of multiple reactants. A series-parallel kinetic model is shown to describe the crit. points of these oscillations, with partition coeffs. on the order of 10-6-10-4 for the reactive oxygen and excited state species. These results highlight the potential for SWCNTs to characterize complex reaction networks at the nanometer scale. [on SciFinder(R)]

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