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Biocompatibility of boron nitride nanosheets

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Abstract

The properties and applications of boron nitride (BN) nanosheets are complementary to those of graphene, with advantages in chemical and thermal stability. Biocompatibility is an important property for future biomedical applications but has not been investigated experimentally. We studied the biocompatibility of BN nanosheets of different sizes and compared it with that of BN nanoparticles in osteoblast-like cells (SaOS2). Our results showed that the biocompatibility of BN nanomaterials depends on their size, shape, structure, and surface chemical properties. Electron spin resonance measurement revealed that unsaturated B atoms located at the nanosheet edges or on the particle surface are responsible for the cell death.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully thank the financial support from the Australian Research Council under the Discovery program. Experimental assistance from Mrs. Dongmei Zhang is acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Victoria, 3216, Australia

    Srikanth Mateti, Cynthia S. Wong, Lu Hua Li & Ying Chen

  2. Centre for Chemistry and Biotechnology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Victoria, 3216, Australia

    Zhen Liu & Wenrong Yang

  3. School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001, Australia

    Yuncang Li

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  1. Srikanth Mateti
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  2. Cynthia S. Wong
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  6. Lu Hua Li
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  7. Ying Chen
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Correspondence to Ying Chen.

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Mateti, S., Wong, C.S., Liu, Z. et al. Biocompatibility of boron nitride nanosheets. Nano Res. 11, 334–342 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1635-y

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