ABSTRACT
Current blood glucose sensors have proven to be inadequate for long term in vivo applications; membrane biofouling and inflammation play significant roles in sensor instability. An ideal biosensor membrane material must prevent protein adsorption and promote integration of the sensor with the surrounding tissue. Furthermore, biosensor membranes must be sufficiently thin and porous in order to allow the sensor to rapidly respond to fluctuations in analyte concentration. In this study, the use of diamondlike carbon-coated anodized aluminum oxide as a potential biosensor membrane is discussed. Diamondlike carbon films and diamondlike carbon-coated anodized aluminum oxide nanoporous membranes were examined using scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and platelet rich plasma testing. The diamondlike carbon-coated anodized aluminum oxide membranes remained free from protein adsorption during in vitro platelet rich plasma testing. We anticipate that this novel membrane could find use in immunoisolation devices, pacemakers, kidney dialysis membranes, microdialysis systems, and other devices facing biocompatibility issues that limit in vivo function.
Subject(s)
Biocompatible Materials/chemistry , Carbon/chemistry , Nanotechnology/methods , Nanotubes, Carbon/chemistry , Adsorption , Aluminum Oxide/chemistry , Biosensing Techniques , Electrochemistry/methods , Equipment Design , Materials Testing , Membranes/chemistry , Microscopy, Electron, Scanning , Spectrum Analysis, RamanABSTRACT
Carbon nanotubes (CNT) possess excellent mechanical properties to play the role as reinforcement for imparting strength and toughness to brittle hydroxyapatite (HA) bioceramic coating. However, lack of processing technique to uniformly distribute multiwalled CNTs in HA coating and limited studies and sparse knowledge evincing toxicity of CNTs has kept researchers in dispute for long. In the current work, we have addressed these issues by (i) successfully distributing multiwalled CNT reinforcement in HA coating using plasma spraying to improve the fracture toughness (by 56%) and enhance crystallinity (by 27%), and (ii) culturing human osteoblast hFOB 1.19 cells onto CNT reinforced HA coating to elicit its biocompatibility with living cells. Unrestricted growth of human osteoblast hFOB 1.19 cells has been observed near CNT regions claiming assistance by CNT surfaces to promote cell growth and proliferation.
