Carbon Allotropes-Based Nanodevices
Sugandha Singhal, Meenal Gupta, Md Sabir Alam, Md. Noushad Javed, Jamilur R. Ansari
Abstract
Carbon is the most abundant and structural building-block element of life. It is nonmetallic, but bears the unique ability of self-binding and associating other elements to form structurally diverse compounds of various physical and chemical attributes. The technical implications and the importance of carbon-based nanomaterials are versatile in healthcare for diagnosis, drug delivery and therapeutic purposes. In the carbon-based nanomaterials family, the unique physical and chemical properties of graphene nanomaterials (GBNs) attracted researchers to exploit it for biomedical applications, such as for optical imaging resonance imaging and drug and gene delivery in inflammatory, infectious and degenerative disorders. Drug, gene delivery, bio-sensing, bio-electronics, tissue engineering, anti-cancer and antimicrobial are a few among the varied applications of carbon nanomaterials. Among GBNs, graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) are majorly studied for their medical use. This chapter briefly discusses the physical and chemical properties, synthesis and biomedical application of graphene nanomaterials.