A density functional theory outlook on the possible sensing ability of boron nitride nanotubes and their Al- and Si-doped derivatives for sulfonamide drugs

The computational quantum mechanical investigation of the functionalized boron nitride nanocage as the smart carriers for favipiravir drug delivery: a DFT and QTAIM analysis

Favipiravir (FPV) is an antiviral drug used for the cure of Influenza virus, Ebola virus, Lassa virus etc. because it has excellent preventing ability of entry/exit of the virus into/from the human cells. Boron nitride nanocages have already drawn enormous attention as the delivery vehicle of various drug molecules for their nontoxicity and other lucrative properties. In this research, we have scrutinized the adsorption mechanism of FPV molecule on the exterior surface of pristine, Zn functionalized, and Ni functionalized B12N12 (BN, Zn f-BN, and Ni f-BN) nanocages by applying the DFT/QTAIM method and B3LYP/6-31G(d,p) approach. The adsorption energy (E_Ad) data reveal that the functionalized BN adsorbents can adsorb FPV drug very efficiently compared with the pristine adsorbent (Highest E_Ad is -56.40 kcal/mol for FPV adsorbed Ni f-BN complex). The reduction of the HOMO-LUMO gap up to 67.79% indicates that this drug can be detected by the produced electrical signal very promisingly in the case of f-BN nanocages. The topological parameters also validate the ability of the f-BN nanocages to adsorb the FPV molecule. The effect of the biological environment of our investigated structures has been studied by using water as a solvent, and spontaneous adsorption with high solubility is observed in our calculations. This analysis also reveals that f-BN nanocages can be a potential nanocarrier for the delivery of FPV drug molecule.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

In-plane graphene/boron nitride heterostructures and their potential application as toxic gas sensors

After the successful synthesis of graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) heterostructures, research works have been carried out for their plausible real-world device applications. Such 2D nanosheets gain great attention as they have shown promising gas sensing properties due to their high surface-to-volume ratio and unique electronic properties between graphene and h-BN. Herein, we report a first-principles density functional theory investigation of the structural and electronic properties of pristine graphene (PG), pristine BN, and their in-plane heterostructures employing B3LYP and dispersion-corrected van der Waals functional WB97XD with the 6-311G (d, p) basis set. We found that these predicted nanosheets show good structural stability with favorable cohesive energy and the bandgap gradually increases with the increase in the B–N concentration. We have also studied their adsorption properties toward toxic gas molecules (SO₂ and CO). Among these heterostructures, G2BN2 exhibits greater adsorption energy of about −0.237 eV and −0.335 eV when exposed to SO₂ and CO gas molecules, respectively. The electronic properties such as HOMO and LUMO energies, HOMO–LUMO energy gap, Fermi level, work function, and conductivity significantly changed after the adsorption of SO₂ gas on the nanosheets except for PG, whereas these parameters remain almost the same after the adsorption of the CO gas molecule. Mulliken and natural bond orbital (NBO) charge analysis reveals that charge transfer occurs from gas molecules to the nanosheets except when SO₂ is adsorbed onto PG. Although the adsorption energies for CO gas are slightly greater than those for SO₂ gas for these nanosheets, all other investigations such as electronic properties, charge transfer analysis, molecular electrostatic potential (MEP) map, and global indices predict that these nanosheets are good sensors for SO₂ gas than CO gas molecules.

DFT methods were used to study the surface geometry of in-plane 2D graphene/BN heterostructures and their effects on the adsorption properties.

The recent advancement of low-dimensional nanostructured materials for drug delivery and drug sensing application: A brief review

In this review article, we have presented a detailed analysis of the recent advancement of quantum mechanical calculations in the applications of the low-dimensional nanomaterials (LDNs) into biomedical fields like biosensors and drug delivery systems development. Biosensors play an essential role for many communities, e.g. law enforcing agencies to sense illicit drugs, medical communities to remove overdosed medications from the human and animal body etc. Besides, drug delivery systems are theoretically being proposed for many years and experimentally found to deliver the drug to the targeted sites by reducing the harmful side effects significantly. In current COVID-19 pandemic, biosensors can play significant roles, e.g. to remove experimental drugs during the human trials if they show any unwanted adverse effect etc. where the drug delivery systems can be potentially applied to reduce the side effects. But before proceeding to these noble and expensive translational research works, advanced theoretical calculations can provide the possible outcomes with considerable accuracy. Hence in this review article, we have analyzed how theoretical calculations can be used to investigate LDNs as potential biosensor devices or drug delivery systems. We have also made a very brief discussion on the properties of biosensors or drug delivery systems which should be investigated for the biomedical applications and how to calculate them theoretically. Finally, we have made a detailed analysis of a large number of recently published research works where theoretical calculations were used to propose different LDNs for bio-sensing and drug delivery applications.