Noncovalent nanoassembly of porphyrin on single-walled carbon nanotubes for electrocatalytic reduction of nitric oxide and oxygen

Recent Progress in Carbon Nanotube Polymer Composites in Tissue Engineering and Regeneration

Scaffolds are important to tissue regeneration and engineering because they can sustain the continuous release of various cell types and provide a location where new bone-forming cells can attach and propagate. Scaffolds produced from diverse processes have been studied and analyzed in recent decades. They are structurally efficient for improving cell affinity and synthetic and mechanical strength. Carbon nanotubes are spongy nanoparticles with high strength and thermal inertness, and they have been used as filler particles in the manufacturing industry to increase the performance of scaffold particles. The regeneration of tissue and organs requires a significant level of spatial and temporal control over physiological processes, as well as experiments in actual environments. This has led to an upsurge in the use of nanoparticle-based tissue scaffolds with numerous cell types for contrast imaging and managing scaffold characteristics. In this review, we emphasize the usage of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and CNT–polymer composites in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine and also summarize challenges and prospects for their potential applications in different areas.

Applications of Carbon Nanotubes in Bone Tissue Regeneration and Engineering: Superiority, Concerns, Current Advancements, and Prospects

With advances in bone tissue regeneration and engineering technology, various biomaterials as artificial bone substitutes have been widely developed and innovated for the treatment of bone defects or diseases. However, there are no available natural and synthetic biomaterials replicating the natural bone structure and properties under physiological conditions. The characteristic properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) make them an ideal candidate for developing innovative biomimetic materials in the bone biomedical field. Indeed, CNT-based materials and their composites possess the promising potential to revolutionize the design and integration of bone scaffolds or implants, as well as drug therapeutic systems. This review summarizes the unique physicochemical and biomedical properties of CNTs as structural biomaterials and reinforcing agents for bone repair as well as provides coverage of recent concerns and advancements in CNT-based materials and composites for bone tissue regeneration and engineering. Moreover, this review discusses the research progress in the design and development of novel CNT-based delivery systems in the field of bone tissue engineering.

Sensitive electrochemical detection of nitric oxide based on AuPt and reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites

Since nitric oxide (NO) plays a critical role in many biological processes, its precise detection is essential toward an understanding of its specific functions. Here we report on a facile and environmentally compatible strategy for the construction of an electrochemical sensor based on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and AuPt bimetallic nanoparticles. The prepared nanocomposites were further employed for the electroanalysis of NO using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) and amperometric methods. The dependence of AuPt molar ratios on the electrochemical performance was investigated. Through the combination of the advantages of the high conductivity from rGO and highly electrocatalytic activity from AuPt bimetallic nanoparticles, the AuPt-rGO based NO sensor exhibited a high sensitivity of 7.35 μA μM(-1) and a low detection limit of 2.88 nM. Additionally, negligible interference from common ions or organic molecules was observed, and the AuPt-rGO modified electrode demonstrated excellent stability. Moreover, this optimized electrochemical sensor was practicable for efficiently monitoring the NO released from rat cardiac cells, which were stimulated by l-arginine (l-arg), showing that stressed cells generated over 10 times more NO than normal cells. The novel sensor developed in this study may have significant medical diagnostic applications for the prevention and monitoring of disease.

Thermoresponsive Ultrathin Membranes with Precisely Tuned Nanopores for High-Flux Separation

With the growing demand for small- and large-scale bioprocesses, advanced membranes with high energy efficiency are highly required. However, conventional polymer-based membranes often have to sacrifice selectivity for permeability. In this work, we report the fabrication of a thermoresponsive composite ultrathin membrane with precisely controlled nanopores for high-throughput separation. The composite membrane is made by grafting a PEG analogue thermoresponsive copolymer onto an ultrathin single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) membrane via π-π interaction with no use of the common "grafting from" synthesis approach. The composite membrane exhibits ultrahigh water permeation flux as high as 6430 L m(-2) h(-1) at 40 °C, and more importantly, the pore size of the membrane could be finely adjusted by utilizing the thermoresponsive property of the grafted copolymer. With the temperature changing below and above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of the copolymer, the effective pore size of the membrane can be tuned precisely between approximately 12 and 14 nm, which could be applied to effectively separate materials with very small size differences through size sieving.

Functionalization of carbon nanotubes with water-insoluble porphyrin in ionic liquid: direct electrochemistry and highly sensitive amperometric biosensing for trichloroacetic acid

A functional composite of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with hematin, a water-insoluble porphyrin, was first prepared in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([BMIM][PF(6)]) ionic liquid. The novel composite in ionic liquid was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and showed a pair of direct redox peaks of the Fe(III)/Fe(II) couple. The composite-[BMIM][PF(6)]-modified glassy carbon electrode showed excellent electrocatalytic activity toward the reduction of trichloroacetic acid (TCA) in neutral media due to the synergic effect among SWNTs, [BMIM][PF(6)], and porphyrin, which led to a highly sensitive and stable amperometric biosensor for TCA with a linear range from 9.0x10(-7) to 1.4x10(-4) M. The detection limit was 3.8x10(-7) M at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. The TCA biosensor had good analytical performance, such as rapid response, good reproducibility, and acceptable accuracy, and could be successfully used for the detection of residual TCA in polluted water. The functional composite in ionic liquid provides a facile way to not only obtain the direct electrochemistry of water-insoluble porphyrin, but also construct novel biosensors for monitoring analytes in real environmental samples.