Physicochemical and biological assessment of boron nitride nanosheets-reinforced poly(2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate) composite for biomedical applications

Abstract

Research on mechanically advanced materials for biological applications involving load-bearing is in progress. Within this scope, this study is the first to propose the fabrication of bionanocomposites combining the different amounts of functionalized boron nitride nanosheets (f-BNNSs, 0-2.0 mg/mL) and poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (pHEMA). The pristine BN was exfoliated by microwave irradiation to access BNNSs at different powers and times. The as-exfoliated BNNSs were characterized by zeta-sizer, FTIR, XRD, and TEM, which showed that the BNNSs exhibited facile and processable features in tiny sizes. Bionanocomposites were fabricated by photopolymerization. The physical, chemical, and mechanical properties, hydrophilic behavior, and degradability of bionanocomposites were evaluated. The mechanical parameters such as Young’s modulus and elongation percentage at break showed that adding f-BNNSs up to 2.0 mg/mL significantly increased the mechanical strength of pHEMA without affecting the hydrophilicity, hemocompatibility, and cytotoxicity. Moreover, the hardness of pHEMA/f-BNNSs composites (38.56 MPa) was remarkably higher than that of pHEMA. There was no cytotoxicity recorded for fabricated bionanocomposites from the MTT assay. All nanocomposites exhibited superior antibacterial activities against E.coli and S.aureus compared with pHEMA. However, pHEMA/f-BNNSs composites were more effective against E.coli than S.aureus . While E.coli colonies was reduced 100% at all composites in an hour, S.aureus colonies was completely destroyed with pHEMA/1f-BNNSs and pHEMA/2f-BNNSs after 24 h incubation. The study's findings demonstrated that the mechanically improved pHEMA/f-BNNSs films could increase the application of pHEMA in biomedical fields.