Melt‐blending of unmodified and modified cellulose nanocrystals with reduced graphene oxide into PLA matrix for biomedical application

Abstract

In this article, we successfully fabricated the bionanocomposites using cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) reinforced into biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) matrix through melt-mixing method. Due to the affinity difference between hydrophilic CNC and hydrophobic PLA, the surface modification of CNC was employed using quaternary ammonium salts (CTAB) as a surfactant. The nanocomposites were developed using different blend ratios of CNC/modified CNC (1, 2, and 3) wt% and (0.5 wt%) rGO into the polymer matrix. The morphology of CNC, q-CNC (modified CNC), and nanocomposites were inspected by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). It is demonstrated from tensile tests that, the nanocomposite with 1 wt% CNC and rGO showed maximum tensile strength compared with PLA and its nanocomposites.Moreover, the nanocomposite with 1 wt% CNC and rGO was also having maximum thermal stability. From cytotoxicity evaluation, it is observed that all the nanocomposites are nontoxic and cytocompatible to HEK293 cells. In addition to this, the nanocomposite with q-CNC showed enhanced barrier properties compared with PLA and PLA/CNC/rGO nanocomposite. The results obtained from different characterizations showed that the incorporation of surfactant onto CNC improved the dispersion in PLA but at the same time deteriorated the PLA matrix. KEYWORDScellulose nanocrystal, melt-mixing, polylactic acid, quaternary ammonium salt

Applications of Nanocellulose/Nanocarbon Composites: Focus on Biotechnology and Medicine

“…At the same time, this film exhibited negligible cytotoxicity against a mouse NIH-3T3 fibroblast cell line, as revealed by an MTT assay of the activity of mitochondrial oxidoreductase enzymes [87]. Nanocomposites of CNCs and rGO, incorporated into PLA matrix through the melt-mixing method, were noncytotoxic and cytocompatible with epithelial human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK293) cells [68]. PLA incorporated with rGO and TEMPO-oxidized CNCs, grafted with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), displayed radical scavenging activity and negligible toxicity and cytocompatibility to mouse embryonic C3H10T1/2 cells [69].…”

“…General cell biocompatibility [68,69,87]; bone TE [37,59]; neural TE [105]; vascular TE [107] Neural tissue engineering [51]; TE in general [117] Wound dressing/healing Polysaccharides/fullerene C 60 derivatives [118] Human dermal fibroblasts in vitro [108]; mouse model in vivo [109] L929 fibroblasts in vitro [58,62]; HeLa cells in vitro, wound dressings delivering doxorubicin [97] Activated carbon: antibacterial wound dressing [30] This review summarizes recent knowledge on the types, properties and applications of nanocellulose/nanocarbon-based hybrid materials, particularly in biotechnology, biomedicine and tissue engineering, and reports on the experience acquired by our group.…”

“…In addition, the composites with CNC/rGO nanohybrids performed better than those with a single component nanofiller, i.e., either CNCs or rGO. Due to their antibacterial activity, antioxidant properties and good in vitro cytocompatibility, these composites are also promising for biomedical applications, e.g., as scaffolds for tissue engineering [67][68][69]87].…”

“…In addition to its advantageous combination with nanocarbon materials, nanocellulose is an appealing material for biomedical applications due to its tunable chemical fluorescence and luminescence [26,71,72] photothermal activity [56], hydrolytic stability [61], nanoporous character and high adsorption capacity [49,61]. Nanocellulose/nanocarbon composites can therefore be used in a wide range of industrial and technological applications, such as water purification [22,29,43,49,54,56,61,[73][74][75][76], the isolation and separation of various molecules [22,74,[77][78][79], energy generation, storage and conversion [21,23,44,47,64,[80][81][82][83][84][85], biocatalysis [86], food packaging [67][68][69]87], construction of fire retardants [48], heat spreaders [70] and shape memory devices [38,[88][89][90]. These comp...…”

Improving Interaction at Polymer–Filler Interface: The Efficacy of Wrinkle Texture

“…In order to achieve excellent dispersion of the filler, many strategies have already been employed. These include conventional synthetic approaches such as melt-extrusion processes [28], co-extrusion and solution casting [29][30][31][32]; the inclusion of interfacial modifications by specific coupling agents, including oleic acid, rubbers, L-lactic acid oligomers and 2-methacryloyloxyethyl isocyanate [33]; and/or surface pre-treatments of the reinforcing phase [34,35].…”