Carbon Nanospheres for Biomedical Applications

ABSTRACTCarbon nanostructures, e.g., nanotubes, fullerenes, carbon blacks, etc., are being extensively explored for numerous biomedical applications. The most of such studies, however, deal with carbon nanotubes, and comparatively less is known on the biomedical potential of other nanosize carbon particles. In the present work, carbon and metal/carbon core/shell spherical nanoparticles have been prepared using the decomposition of monosaccharide-based compositions under hydrothermal conditions with or without the presence of metal seed particles. The effects of different process conditions on the particle size, structure, and composition have been examined using TEM, XRD, UV-Vis, FTIR and Raman spectroscopies. The nearly perfect spherical particles with the dimensions in the range of 20 – 100 nm have been obtained depending on the process parameters such as precursor concentration, presence of seed particles and polymeric additives, process temperature and time. The particles prepared with 5 – 20 nm gold seeds clearly showed the core/shell structure with the thickness of carbon shell in the range of 10 – 50 nm. The FTIR experiments have indicated a strong effect of the processing conditions on the chemical activity of nanoparticle surfaces in the attachment of the additional surface functional groups and organic molecules. It has been found that the both hydrothermally prepared carbon and metal/carbon core/shell nanoparticles possess very good dispersibility and stability in the both water and simulated body fluids in the most of experiments. The particles have been successfully functionalized with several molecules such as polyethyleneglucol and biotin. Selected samples of well-dispersed carbon nanospheres with different concentrations have been tested for their interaction with several cultured cell lines including epidermal keratinocytes, fibroblasts, and dog macrophages.