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Review
. 2023 Mar 20;14(3):166.
doi: 10.3390/jfb14030166.

Doped Carbon Quantum Dots Reinforced Hydrogels for Sustained Delivery of Molecular Cargo

Shweta Kanungo  1 , Neeta Gupta  2 , Reena Rawat  3 , Bhawana Jain  4 , Aruna Solanki  5 , Ashutosh Panday  6 , P Das  7 , S Ganguly  7
Affiliations
Review

Doped Carbon Quantum Dots Reinforced Hydrogels for Sustained Delivery of Molecular Cargo

Shweta Kanungo et al. J Funct Biomater. .

Abstract

Hydrogels have emerged as important soft materials with numerous applications in fields including biomedicine, biomimetic smart materials, and electrochemistry. Because of their outstanding photo-physical properties and prolonged colloidal stability, the serendipitous findings of carbon quantum dots (CQDs) have introduced a new topic of investigation for materials scientists. CQDs confined polymeric hydrogel nanocomposites have emerged as novel materials with integrated properties of the individual constituents, resulting in vital uses in the realm of soft nanomaterials. Immobilizing CQDs within hydrogels has been shown to be a smart tactic for preventing the aggregation-caused quenching effect and also for manipulating the characteristics of hydrogels and introducing new properties. The combination of these two very different types of materials results in not only structural diversity but also significant improvements in many property aspects, leading to novel multifunctional materials. This review covers the synthesis of doped CQDs, different fabrication techniques for nanostructured materials made of CQDs and polymers, as well as their applications in sustained drug delivery. Finally, a brief overview of the present market and future perspectives are discussed.

Keywords: biomedicine; carbon quantum dots; colloidal stability; hydrogel; present market; sustained drug delivery.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The triangular representation of the corrections among synthesis, property, and application of CQDs with wide application ranges [43].
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Schematic representation of top-down and bottom-up methods for CQD synthesis (b) their surface modifications, target specificity, drug delivery, multimodal imaging and applications in smart healthcare [53,54].
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) The ultimate tensile strength of various nanoparticles was compared with that of neat epoxy, demonstrating that GQDs offered good enhancement. (b) Comparing the moduli of elasticity of composites of various nanoparticles to those of pure epoxy showed that GQDs stiffened the epoxy relative to all the other nanoparticles. In both graphs, the GQDs are showcased in the purple shaded region [69].
Figure 4
Figure 4
Illustration of physical and chemical crosslinking displaying the type of connection within the material [82].
Figure 5
Figure 5
Different crosslinking agents used in the synthesis of hydrogels [85].
Figure 6
Figure 6
Size of hydrogel mesh in expanded and contracted states, schematically.
Figure 7
Figure 7
The advancement of drug delivery from fundamental research to applications.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Diagram of CNC-GQD hydrogel. (A) Hydrogel building blocks: CNC with surface hydroxyl and half-ester sulphate groups (left) and GQD with edge carboxylic groups (right). (B) CNC-GQD suspension hydrogels. The inset depicts the hydrogen connection between GQD carboxyl and CNC hydroxyl groups. Reproduced with permission from ref. [103].
Figure 9
Figure 9
Hydrogel synthesis reaction mechanism that makes sense (inset: hybrid hydrogel images in visible and 365 nm UV light). Reproduced with permission from ref. [11].
Figure 10
Figure 10
Schematic illustrations of dynamic covalent bond-formed PDA@CD hydrogels with different degrees of oxidation and molecular weights. Reproduced with permission from ref. [107].
Figure 11
Figure 11
Diagrammatic representation of CD synthesis and hydrogel production. Reproduced with permission from ref. [108].
Figure 12
Figure 12
Scanning electron micrographs of (a) ALg hydrogel, (b) ALg + CQDs-1 hydrogel, (c) ALg + CQDs-2 hydrogel, (d) ALg + CQDs-3 hydrogel, and (e–h) CQDs-CNF hydrogel (Mag = 150×). Reproduced with permission from ref. [110].
Figure 13
Figure 13
(a) Synthesis of Bi-N-CDs and Bi-N-CDs/BiOBr, (b) formation mechanism of transparent wood (TW), (c) formation mechanism of Bi-N-CDs/BiOBr@PAA and its interface connection with TW. Reproduced with permission from ref. [113].
Figure 14
Figure 14
(a) Polymer–drug conjugates and different types of release mechanism. (b) Different types of probable drug–drug conjugates in polymer gel networks.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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