Highly Water-Soluble, Porous, and Biocompatible Boron Nitrides for Anticancer Drug Delivery

Abstract

Developing materials for "Nano-vehicles" with clinically approved drugs encapsulated is envisaged to enhance drug therapeutic effects and reduce the adverse effects. However, design and preparation of the biomaterials that are porous, nontoxic, soluble, and stable in physiological solutions and could be easily functionalized for effective drug deliveries are still challenging. Here, we report an original and simple thermal substitution method to fabricate perfectly water-soluble and porous boron nitride (BN) materials featuring unprecedentedly high hydroxylation degrees. These hydroxylated BNs are biocompatible and can effectively load anticancer drugs (e.g., doxorubicin, DOX) up to contents three times exceeding their own weight. The same or even fewer drugs that are loaded on such BN carriers exhibit much higher potency for reducing the viability of LNCaP cancer cells than free drugs.

Edge‐Hydroxylated Boron Nitride Nanosheets as an Effective Additive to Improve the Thermal Response of Hydrogels

“…Simulations have indicated that effective functionalization of BNNS can change its band gap and consequently lead to applications in various fields. [13] Experimentally, hydroxyl functionalized BNNS (OH-BNNS) has been synthesized via various methods, including sonicating bulk h-BN powder in water, [10] heating bulk h-BN powder in air, [14] treating h-BN powder in hot H2SO4/KMnO4 aqueous solution, [15] chemical reactions between g-C3N4 and B(OH)3, [16] and oxygen radical functionalization followed by hydrolytic defunctionalization. [12] The presence of OH groups could alter the surface energy and thus ameliorate the solubility of BNNS in a variety of solvents.…”

“…For example, OH-BNNS has been very effective for polymer reinforcement [12] and drug delivery. [16] Herein, we demonstrate a one-step route whereby commercial h-BN can be directly exfoliated by a steam treatment and simultaneously functionalized to yield OH-BNNS (Figure 1a). This procedure is simple, low-cost, free of harsh chemicals, and can be readily scaled up.…”

“…In reality, tetrahedrally coordinated N3B(OH) is also formed. [16] The presence of -B(OH) can be verified using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and XRD. [10,12,23] Two strong FTIR bands at ~1343 cm -1 and ~807 cm -1 are present in pristine h-BN, h-BN treated at 850 ºC (BN-850), and h-BN treated at 900 ºC (BN-900) (Figure 2a), which are correlated with the in-plane stretching and the out-of-plane bending mode of h-BN, respectively.…”

Controllable synthesis of few-layered and hierarchically porous boron nitride nanosheets

“…A previous report has proposed that micropores in porous BNNS arise mainly from enlarged interlayer distances and nonparallel BN layers. 21 Temperatures over 850 1C facilitate crystallization of the BNNS, as evidenced by the XRD patterns (Fig. 1c), and consequently, reduce the amount of non-parallel BN layers and thereby micropores.…”

“…21,26,27 The capture of CO 2 has attracted considerable attention in recent years, since anthropogenic CO 2 emission is believed to be the main contributor to global warming. Each BN sample was therefore examined for CO 2 sorption up to 760 Torr at 298, 288, and 273 K (Fig.…”