In this work we detail the mechanism by which alkali metal encapsulation inside an armchair (9,9) single walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) can affect external amino acid interactions. Based on our analysis, several configurations revealed that the physical properties of the SWNT systems are modified by using an internally situated Li atom. Density-functional theory calculations reveal that the most favorable interactions of the SWNT system is with tryptophan, threonine and proline that can be directly correlated to the backbone geometry of the amino acid species. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.