Graphene and its derivatives for cell biotechnology

Abstract

Every few years, a novel material with salient and often unique properties emerges and attracts both academic and industrial interest from the scientific community. The latest blockbuster is graphene, an increasingly important nanomaterial with atomically thin sheets of carbon, which has become a shining star and has shown great promise in the field of material science and nanotechnology. In recent years, it has changed from being the exclusive domain of physicists to the new passion of chemists and biologists. Graphene and its derivatives are now at the forefront of nearly every rapidly developing field of science and engineering, including biochemistry, biomedicine and certain cutting-edge interdisciplines that have intense popularity. The aim of this review is, firstly, to provide readers with a comprehensive, systematic and in-depth prospective of graphene's band structure and properties, and secondly, to concentrate on the recent progress in producing graphene-based nanomaterials, including mechanical exfoliation, chemical vapor deposition, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, chemical reduction of graphene oxide, total organic synthesis, electrochemical synthesis and other fabrication strategies widely accepted by research scientists. At the same time, important definitions related to graphene are also introduced. The focus of this Tutorial Review is to emphasize the current situation and significance of using this new kind of two-dimensional material in the hot and emerging fields that are closely related to human life quality, for instance, cell biochemistry, bioimaging along with other frontier areas. Finally, the latest developments and possible impact that affect the heart of the whole scientific community have been discussed. In addition, the future trends along with potential challenges of this rapidly rising layered carbon have been pointed out in this paper.

Is Graphene a Promising Nano-Material for Promoting Surface Modification of Implants or Scaffold Materials in Bone Tissue Engineering?

“…The strong carboncarbon bonding in the plane, the aromatic structure, the presence of free p electrons, and reactive sites for surface reactions make graphene a unique material with excellent properties: the thinnest material ever measured; a large specific surface area (2600 m 2 g -1 ) 15 ; a Young's modulus of 1 TPa and intrinsic strength of 130 GPa, which is close to that predicted by theory 16,17 ; a high room temperature electron mobility of 2. 20,21 ; and complete impermeability to any gases.…”

“…36 By contrast, mechanical exfoliation suffers from low yields, making it difficult to apply to industrial-scale production. 15 Graphene oxide (GO) is an oxidized derivative of graphene. 37 The most widely used approach to GO synthesis is based on the principle first introduced by Hummers and Offeman (commonly referred to as Hummers method), which involves the oxidation of graphite by treatment with potassium permanganate and sulfuric acid.…”

Single-Layer Graphene Enhances the Osteogenic Differentiation of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells In Vitro and In Vivo

“…5 Since then, it has attracted much interest from various fields and become extensively studied by material scientists, physicists and chemists. [6][7][8][9][10][11] Now its uses are expanding beyond electronic and chemical applications toward biomedical areas, such Copyright: American Scientific Publishers as drug delivery, cancer therapies, biosensing and tissue engineering. 12 13 Single-layer graphene can now be successfully produced in large areas by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on copper foil or nickel film; 14 15 the copper or nickel is etched before the single-layer graphene is transferred to different substrates.…”

An Adsorption Study of NO on Graphene and Graphene Oxides

“…Depending on the Hummers method [4], the following processes in laboratory were made to prepare GOs from the expanded graphite. Under ice-water bath, potassium permanganate (30g) and the concentrated sulfuric acid (98%, 300mL) were initially stirred until being homogeneous.…”