Engineering of 2D Ti3C2 MXene Surface Charge and Its Influence on Biological Properties.

Anita Rozmysłowska-Wojciechowska,Agnieszka M Jastrzębska,Michał Chudy,Mateusz Petrus,Alexey S Vasilchenko,Aleksandra Szuplewska,Joanna Mitrzak,Tomasz Wojciechowski,Jarosław Woźniak

doi:10.3390/ma13102347

Anita Rozmysłowska-Wojciechowska, Agnieszka M Jastrzębska + Show 7 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13102347

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Abstract

Current trends in the field of MXenes emphasize the importance of controlling their surface features for successful application in biotechnological areas. The ability to stabilize the surface properties of MXenes has been demonstrated here through surface charge engineering. It was thus determined how changing the surface charges of two-dimensional (2D) Ti3C2 MXene phase flakes using cationic polymeric poly-L-lysine (PLL) molecules affects the colloidal and biological properties of the resulting hybrid 2D nanomaterial. Electrostatic adsorption of PLL on the surface of delaminated 2D Ti3C2 flakes occurs efficiently, leads to changing an MXene’s negative surface charge toward a positive value, which can also be effectively managed through pH changes. Analysis of bioactive properties revealed additional antibacterial functionality of the developed 2D Ti3C2/PLL MXene flakes concerning Escherichia. coli Gram-negative bacteria cells. A reduction of two orders of magnitude of viable cells was achieved at a concentration of 200 mg L−1. The in vitro analysis also showed lowered toxicity in the concentration range up to 375 mg L−1. The presented study demonstrates a feasible approach to control surface properties of 2D Ti3C2 MXene flakes through surface charge engineering which was also verified in vitro for usage in biotechnology or nanomedicine applications.

Highlights

Since the discovery of the specific properties of graphene, there has been an avalanche like increase of interest in two-dimensional (2D) materials [1]
Analysis of morphology and structure of 2D flakes of pristine Ti3 C2 MXene after delamination was carried out using SEM and High-resolution transmissions electron microscopy (HRTEM), respectively
Morphology of 2D Ti3 C2 MXene flakes was visualized at different magnifications (Figure 1A–C)

Summary

Introduction

Since the discovery of the specific properties of graphene, there has been an avalanche like increase of interest in two-dimensional (2D) materials [1]. New MXene structures (i.e., light transition metal carbides, nitrides and carbonitrides) are interesting in this area because of their specific physicochemical and bioactive properties such as antibacterial properties, biosensing and excellent photothermal conversion which can be used in theranostics [3]. It turned out that MXenes is a very large group of new materials with anisotropic crystal structure (e.g., Ti2 C, Ti2 N, Nb2 C, V2 C, Mo2 C, Ti3 C2 , Ti3 CN, Ti4 N3 or Nb4 C3 ) with long-range in-plane ordering [5].

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