Tweak 3D carbon-polymers for biomedical applications

Background

The technology is rapidly moving towards wearable devices, electronic skin, flexible sensors etc., for addressing diverse applications in smart health informatics, diagnostics, biomedical and in general healthcare. To make highly sensitive, efficient devices for various healthcare applications several combinations of materials have been tested. One such material which found to be suitable for futuristic applications is carbon-polymer composite materials. Due to several intrinsic properties of carbon-based materials and hydrogel materials their resulting composites found to have intriguing characteristics which can be tuned for multitude of applications.

"…the intriguing properties of carbon-polymer composites opens enormous application areas…"

Since the carbon and hydrogel-based materials have broader molecular structure, one can use novel synthetic bottom-up chemical routes to make wide range of three-dimensional (3D) porous nano-materials. These new grades of materials usually have unique structural, electrical, mechanical properties. They also consist various chemical functionalities within their structures. The unique properties of these materials expand the research horizon in clinical, biomedical, and diagnostic conundrums including cell separation, stem-cell scaffolds, DNA extraction, gene targeting, imaging, biosensors, and tissue engineering. 

“… the composite materials useful for multitude of life-science applications, healthcare and many more…"

Though the field looks very promising in terms of research and commercial applications, there are multiple challenges which needs to be addressed at fundamental level before these materials being used in commercial medical devices.

Challenges

As the field of carbon-hydrogel composites is still in nascent stages, one need to investigate the role of various parameters from fundamental point of view. The few central challenges in developing soft composite materials are as follows

• The microscopic engineering 
• Tuning of features to impart the desired macroscopic phenomena
• Structure-property relations
• Effect of external factors (heat, moisture, pH etc.,)

Within this broad field of carbon-hydrogel polymer composites studying the effect of various parameters and their impact and performance in research laboratories followed by addressing the challenges to scale up commercially would lead to viable composite materials for medical and clinical applications. Once the fundamental properties understood to great level, then focus need to be directed towards design and development of materials for wide range of applications.

“…fundamental studies followed by translation brings these materials into mainstream..."

Opportunities

Every challenge is an opportunity for innovating something useful. In similar lines, to address these challenges, one need to study the 3D self-assembly chemistry between carbon-based materials and hydrogel polymers, this helps in developing novel synthetic strategies. Further, insights of intrinsic microstructures including the distribution of polymers along with the interfaces of carbon-based materials and polymers aids in getting deeper insights of the structure property relationships. It is to be noted that the knowledge and know-how of structure-property relations are crucial for efficiently tailoring the performance of the materials and tuning for the better designs.

Additionally, in polymer nanocomposites geometry (e.g., topology, morphology), pores, interconnectivity, ordering and kinetics also plays a key role in determining the desired properties. One good opportunity to tune these materials is by playing with cross-linking chemistries between different materials either by subjecting them to covalent interactions or noncovalent interactions. 

Way forward

In the process of creating smart flexible, stretchable, and reversible hydrogel polymer composites for various biomedical applications one need to take consideration of molecular interactions between carbon-based materials and the inorganic-organic-hydrogel biopolymer networks. As the output of the material properties depends on the concentration of each material in the composite, the effect of critical concentration versus desired properties needs to be evaluated while introducing any new polymer. Further, more translation studies required to check the effect of various organic and inorganic solvents on the porous structure, uniform dispersion which minimizes the agglomeration of carbon-based materials within the composites. 

“…molecular interactions and structure property relations have great impact on output properties…"

To make bio-compatible

These new age biomaterials are quite promising for medical applications. However, to make them bio-compatible with minimum or no cell toxicity these materials must be analyzed for their surface and interfacial properties and if needed, appropriate surface modification must be carried out at base level.

To separate cells from body-fluids 

For implementing these materials for separation of biomolecules, various types of bacteria, cells, and hemoglobin from body fluids and subjecting extracted analytes for bio-analysis or for imaging applications, one need to focus on tuning the adsorption properties.

To make sensors-PoC diagnostics 

As the technology is becoming more and more data driven, obtaining the accurate and reliable biological data is highly essential for clinical decision making. Hence, one can tune the properties of these 3D porous nanomaterials by functionalizing with various functional groups or molecular layers. The functionalization helps in understanding the diffusion and transport of electrons or ions, electrostatic interactions through the materials. This feature is essential for making biosensors in which the charge transport or signal transduction from the bio-interfaces to the sensing surfaces for signal readout. 

Further, tuning the covalent and non-covalent interactions, diffusion of ions, and their reaction kinetics are essential features to make these materials as excellent candidates for developing efficient sensing platforms for detection of proteins, miRNA, and nucleic acids for diagnostic and point of care applications.

Final remarks

Applications and Impact

These new age materials such as carbon-polymer hydrogel materials can be utilized for multitude of applications in various domains ranging from biology, healthcare, sensors, diagnostics, medical devices to environmental and defense applications.

These materials find enormous applications especially when they used in platform technologies where a minimal tuning or customization in material properties imparts significant effects on output properties. Further, these materials can be utilized in low cost, large area, or large volume applications due to their excellent charge transport and signal transduction mechanisms. 

“…tweaking in material properties would yield significant useful outcomes…"

Overall, though the carbon-polymer hydrogel materials have interesting applications, great deal of fundamental understanding of the material properties is needed to realize these materials in commercial devices.

Disclaimer: This article is for education purpose. Views expressed are personal and does not represent views of any organization where author was/is/will associate(d).

Hope you enjoyed reading it, happy to receive feedback.

Follow #SCIBASH Newsletter for interesting articles.