Effects of Lateral Size, Thickness, and Stabilizer Concentration on the Cytotoxicity of Defect-Free Graphene Nanosheets: Implications for Biological Applications

Chen-Xia Hu; Oliver Read; Yuyoung Shin; Yingxian Chen; Jingjing Wang; Matthew Boyes; Niting Zeng; Adyasha Panigrahi; Kostas Kostarelos; Igor Larrosa; Sandra Vranic; Cinzia Casiraghi

doi:10.1021/acsanm.2c02403

Effects of Lateral Size, Thickness, and Stabilizer Concentration on the Cytotoxicity of Defect-Free Graphene Nanosheets: Implications for Biological Applications

ACS Appl Nano Mater. 2022 Sep 23;5(9):12626-12636. doi: 10.1021/acsanm.2c02403. Epub 2022 Sep 12.

Authors

Chen-Xia Hu¹, Oliver Read¹, Yuyoung Shin¹, Yingxian Chen^{2

3}, Jingjing Wang¹, Matthew Boyes¹, Niting Zeng¹, Adyasha Panigrahi¹, Kostas Kostarelos^{2

3

4}, Igor Larrosa¹, Sandra Vranic^{2

3}, Cinzia Casiraghi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
² Nanomedicine Lab, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, AV Hill Building, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
³ National Graphene Institute, University of Manchester, Booth Street East, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
⁴ Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), UAB Campus Bellaterra, Barcelona 08193, Spain.

Abstract

In this work, we apply liquid cascade centrifugation to highly concentrated graphene dispersions produced by liquid-phase exfoliation in water with an insoluble bis-pyrene stabilizer to obtain fractions containing nanosheets with different lateral size distributions. The concentration, stability, size, thickness, and the cytotoxicity profile are studied as a function of the initial stabilizer concentration for each fraction. Our results show that there is a critical initial amount of stabilizer (0.4 mg/mL) above which the dispersions show reduced concentration, stability, and biocompatibility, no matter the lateral size of the flakes.