Chemistry resolves carbon nanotube safety fears
17 Jan 2013 by Evoluted New Media
Safety fears about carbon nanotubes - due to their similarity to asbestos - have been resolved following research, conducted at University College London, which revealed that reducing their length removes their toxic properties.
“The apparent structural similarity between carbon nanotubes and asbestos fibres has generated serious concerns about their safety profile,” said Professor Kostas Kostarelos, Chair of Nanomedicine at the UCL School of Pharmacy who led the research.
Published in Angewandte Chemie, Kostarelos and colleagues report that the asbestos-like toxicity of carbon nanotubes can be completely alleviated if their surface is modified and their effective length reduced with a chemical treatment.
Carbon nanotubes, first described in the 1990s, are sheets of carbon atoms rolled up into hollow tubes just a few nanometres in diameter. They have many applications and can be chemically modified for use in cell therapies. They can act as a "nano-needles" allowing the possibility of transport of drugs directly into a cell's cytoplasm.
However, there have been serious concerns about their safety profile. In 2008, a study highlighted the risk of carcinogenic risk from the exposure and persistence of such fibres in the body
In the paper, the authors conclude that only reactions that are able to render carbon nanotubes short and stably suspended in biological fluids without aggregation are able to result in safe, risk-free material. Tri(ethylene glycol) was one such chemical that reacted with the nanotubes to produce these more favourable properties.
“Creative strategies to identify the characteristics that nanoparticles should possess in order to be rendered ‘safe-for-use’ and the way to achieve that, are essential as nanotechnology and its tools are maturing into applications and becoming part of our everyday lives,” added Kostarelos.
Reference:'Asbestos-like pathogenicity of long carbon nanotubes alleviated by chemical functionalization' is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie
