Graphene Oxide and Biomolecules for the Production of Functional 3D Graphene-Based Materials.

Paolo Passaretti

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2022.774097

Abstract

Graphene and its derivatives have been widely employed in the manufacturing of novel composite nanomaterials which find applications across the fields of physics, chemistry, engineering and medicine. There are many techniques and strategies employed for the production, functionalization, and assembly of graphene with other organic and inorganic components. These are characterized by advantages and disadvantages related to the nature of the specific components involved. Among many, biomolecules and biopolymers have been extensively studied and employed during the last decade as building blocks, leading to the realization of graphene-based biomaterials owning unique properties and functionalities. In particular, biomolecules like nucleic acids, proteins and enzymes, as well as viruses, are of particular interest due to their natural ability to self-assemble via non-covalent interactions forming extremely complex and dynamic functional structures. The capability of proteins and nucleic acids to bind specific targets with very high selectivity or the ability of enzymes to catalyse specific reactions, make these biomolecules the perfect candidates to be combined with graphenes, and in particular graphene oxide, to create novel 3D nanostructured functional biomaterials. Furthermore, besides the ease of interaction between graphene oxide and biomolecules, the latter can be produced in bulk, favouring the scalability of the resulting nanostructured composite materials. Moreover, due to the presence of biological components, graphene oxide-based biomaterials are more environmentally friendly and can be manufactured more sustainably compared to other graphene-based materials assembled with synthetic and inorganic components. This review aims to provide an overview of the state of the art of 3D graphene-based materials assembled using graphene oxide and biomolecules, for the fabrication of novel functional and scalable materials and devices.

Highlights

Since 1986, when the term “graphene” was proposed to indicate the two-dimensional form of crystalline carbon (Boehm et al, 1986), a variety of graphene derivatives have been classified over time based on their specific chemical bonds between carbons
The possibility to assemble graphene oxide (GO) in solution in a short time, avoiding costly equipment and polluting reagents makes this approach extremely appealing for the production of graphene oxide-based biomaterials (GOBBs)
GOBBs assembled with biopolymers and other biomolecules such as nucleic acids and proteins are discussed

Summary

Introduction

Since 1986, when the term “graphene” was proposed to indicate the two-dimensional form of crystalline carbon (Boehm et al, 1986), a variety of graphene derivatives have been classified over time based on their specific chemical bonds between carbons. Graphene is defined as a single layer of sp2-hybridized carbon atoms and it continuously triggers the interest of the scientific communities since its first characterization in 2004 (Novoselov et al, 2004) It is a 2D allotrope of Despite its great potential for many applications, it is generally difficult to scale up the properties of individual graphene nanosheets to macroscopic materials. Considering that graphene shows zero band gap as well as inertness to many chemical reactions, it is less competitive than other materials for the fabrication of semiconductors and sensors To overcome these limitations, there is a considerable increase in the number of research studies aiming to improve the functionalization of graphene and its derivatives (Chen et al, 2012; Bottari et al, 2017; Yu et al, 2020). It can be subsequently reduced to rGO via removing the oxygencontaining groups, partially restoring the properties of pristine graphene (Ardini et al, 2016; Mohan et al, 2018)

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