Amino Acid-Assisted Sand-Milling Exfoliation of Boron Nitride Nanosheets for High Thermally Conductive Thermoplastic Polyurethane Composites

Boron nitride nanosheets (BNNSs) show excellent thermal, electrical, optical, and mechanical properties. They are often used as fillers in polymers to prepare thermally conductive composites, which are used in the production of materials for thermal management, such as electronic packaging. Aside from the van der Waals force, there are some ionic bond forces between hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) layers that result in high energy consumption and make BNNSs easily agglomerate. To overcome this issue, L-lysine (Lys) was first employed as a stripping assistant for preparing graft-functionalized BNNSs via mechanical sand-milling technology, and the obtained Lys@BNNSs can be added into thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) by solution mixing and hot-pressing methods to prepare thermally conductive composites. This green and scalable method of amino acid-assisted sand-milling can not only exfoliate the bulk h-BN successfully into few-layer BNNSs but also graft Lys onto the surface or edges of BNNSs through Lewis acid–base interaction. Furthermore, benefiting from Lys’s highly reactive groups and biocompatibility, the compatibility between functionalized BNNSs and the TPU matrix is significantly enhanced, and the thermal conductivity and mechanical properties of the composite are remarkably increased. When the load of Lys@BNNSs is 3 wt%, the thermal conductivity and tensile strength of the obtained composites are 90% and 16% higher than those of the pure TPU, respectively. With better thermal and mechanical properties, Lys@BNNS/TPU composites can be used as a kind of heat dissipation material and have potential applications in the field of thermal management materials.

Preparation of magnetized iron oxide grafted on graphene oxide for hyperthermia application

Magnetic hyperthermia therapy (MHT) is a highly promising therapeutic modality for the treatment of different kinds of cancers and malignant tumors. The therapy is based on the concept that; iron oxide nanoparticles deposited at cancer sites can generate heat when exposed to an alternating current magnetic field or near infrared radiation and consequently destroying only the cancer cells by exploiting their vulnerability to heat. The fact that the treatment is at molecular level and that iron oxide nanoparticles provide more guided focus heating justifies its efficacy over treatment such as surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Nevertheless, the spread of MHT as the next-generation therapeutics has been shadowed by insufficient heating especially at the in vivo stage. This can be averted by modifying the iron oxide nanoparticle structure. To this end, various attempts have been made by developing a magnetic hybrid nanostructure capable of generating efficient heat. However, the synthesis method for each component (of the magnetic hybrid nanostructure) and the grafting process is now an issue. This has a direct effect on the performance of the magnetic hybrid nanostructure in MHT and other applications. The main objective of this review is to detail out the different materials, methods and characterization techniques that have been used so far in developing magnetic hybrid nanostructure. In view of this, we conducted a comprehensive review and present a road map for developing a magnetic hybrid nanostructure that is capable of generating optimum heat during MHT. We further summarize the various characterization techniques and necessary parameters to study in validating the efficiency of the magnetic hybrid nanostructure. Hopefully, this contribution will serve as a guide to researchers that are willing to evaluate the properties of their magnetic hybrid nanostructure.