Advances in Biologically Applicable Graphene-Based 2D Nanomaterials

Abstract

Climate change and increasing contamination of the environment, due to anthropogenic activities, are accompanied with a growing negative impact on human life. Nowadays, humanity is threatened by the increasing incidence of difficult-to-treat cancer and various infectious diseases caused by resistant pathogens, but, on the other hand, ensuring sufficient safe food for balanced human nutrition is threatened by a growing infestation of agriculturally important plants, by various pathogens or by the deteriorating condition of agricultural land. One way to deal with all these undesirable facts is to try to develop technologies and sophisticated materials that could help overcome these negative effects/gloomy prospects. One possibility is to try to use nanotechnology and, within this broad field, to focus also on the study of two-dimensional carbon-based nanomaterials, which have excellent prospects to be used in various economic sectors. In this brief up-to-date overview, attention is paid to recent applications of graphene-based nanomaterials, i.e., graphene, graphene quantum dots, graphene oxide, graphene oxide quantum dots, and reduced graphene oxide. These materials and their various modifications and combinations with other compounds are discussed, regarding their biomedical and agro-ecological applications, i.e., as materials investigated for their antineoplastic and anti-invasive effects, for their effects against various plant pathogens, and as carriers of bioactive agents (drugs, pesticides, fertilizers) as well as materials suitable to be used in theranostics. The negative effects of graphene-based nanomaterials on living organisms, including their mode of action, are analyzed as well.

3D-Structured and Blood-Contact-Safe Graphene Materials

“…The 2D nature of pristine graphene hinders its applicability to the immobilization of large molecules (drugs, enzymes, etc.) and microscopic objects such as cells or bacteria [ 15 , 16 ]. Such applications, in plenty of cases, rely on the presence of adequately developed pore structures due to increased adsorption potential inside the pores.…”

Graphene Oxide Exhibits Antifungal Activity against Bipolaris sorokiniana In Vitro and In Vivo

“…Graphene is a typical two-dimensional carbon nanomaterial and is famous for its excellent electronic conductivity, high thermal stability, high surface area, fine water dispersibility, and outstanding mechanical properties [ 1 , 2 ]. It has been used extensively in more and more areas, such as biomedicine [ 3 ], nanoelectronic equipment [ 4 ], energy storage [ 5 ], gene delivery [ 6 ], cell imaging [ 7 ], tissue engineering [ 8 ], and agroforestry [ 9 , 10 , 11 ].…”