Nano Focus: MXenes poised to improve wearable artificial kidney options
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Focus MXenes poised to improve wearable artificial kidney options
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tomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials are a burgeoning class of structures that now encompass numerous chemistries beyond graphene. They offer highly versatile properties and promising capabilities that transcend the limits of traditional materials. While certain obvious applications immediately jump to mind for these materials—electronics, memory chips, and energy storage—novel biomaterials also stand to benefit from 2D nanostructures. In particular, wearable artificial kidneys, which conduct roundthe-clock dialysis for patients with end-stage renal failure, require new sorbents in order to become sufficiently
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electrodes nutrient flow c
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Tubistor (a) Three-dimensional T-shaped tubistor in an 8-cm-diameter petri dish, with (b) the electrically conductive porous scaffold placed inside, (c) its microstructure, and (d) with green fluorescent cells. Image courtesy of Róisín Owens.
Preliminary data using a drug that bound to calcium have already shown that cells were affected after only 15 minutes. In the future, Owens’s team will perform electrical stimulation experiments with various cell types, including electroactive cells, and study the effect of various compounds on the fully formed tissues. Lesley Chow, assistant professor in bioengineering at Lehigh University and who did not take part in the study, explains
that “culturing cells in 3D is necessary to mimic the extracellular microenvironment found in native tissues. The authors demonstrate that advances in bioelectronics can be exploited to help us learn more about how cells respond to their microenvironment in real time. This is likely to have a major impact on tissue engineering, as such 3D devices will accelerate the optimization of biomaterials design.” Hortense Le Ferrand
lightweight, portable, and efficient to provide this lifesaving treatment. In order for wearable kidneys to efficiently function, they must regularly remove urea molecules from the dialysate solution, which constantly collects these toxic molecules out of blood during dialysis. Traditional methods require catalytic decomposition and outgassing of carbon dioxide and adsorption of ammonia, another decomposition product. This solution is not acceptable and will not work for a proper wearable medical device. On the other hand, 2D materials can effectively trap urea molecules between their atomically thin sheets—but only if the surface chemistry, as well as the interatomic spacing of the laminates, is properly tailored for this process. A relatively new class of 2D transition-metal carbides and nitrides, called
MXenes, appears well-suited for this task. The atomically thin delaminated layers of MXenes are composed of metals (such as titanium) bonded to carbon and/or nitrogen, and terminated with oxygen, hydroxide, or fluoride surface groups. They resemble clays and can accommodate molecules such as water and urea. A team of materials researchers from Drexel University, alongside visiting scientists from G
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