Biopolymer Matrix Composites for New Medical Applications

Abstract

Biopolymeric composites are widely employed as important and green materials in numerous medical applications. The reason is that these materials are non-toxic, environmentally friendly, biodegradable and biocompatible, which are very significant for their biomedical usage. Also, they have various appropriate functional groups allowing their structural modification. Up to now, numerous composites have been achieved for usage in the biomedical areas using diverse biopolymeric and inorganic materials. The most important inorganic materials are gold, silver, TiO2, ZnO, clay and silica nano-/micro-particles, carbon nanotubes, carbon quantum dots, graphene, bioglass and hydroxyapatite. Furthermore, the inorganic materials can be added into the polymeric matrix in the form of yolk-shell, core-shell and impregnated/coupled structures. Additionally, the polymeric composites can be prepared by means of polymer cores and inorganic material shells. The biomedical applications include drug delivery, nucleic acids delivery, gene delivery, peptide/protein/vaccine delivery systems as well as, wound healing, radiotherapy, cancer/tumor treatment, tissue engineering, three-dimensional bio-printing, fabrication of implants, imaging and diagnosis. This article presents the most recent investigations carried out on using numerous biomacromolecules composites in medical applications. The biopolymeric materials include chitosan, carboxymethyl chitosan, alginate, hyaluronic acid, cellulose, carboxymethyl cellulose, starch, carboxymethyl starch, gellan gum, gum acacia/gum arabic, guar gum, tamarind gum, xanthan gum, gelatin, zein, chondroitin sulfate, polyhydroxy butyrate, pectin and collagen.