A toxicity study reveals that graphene, this miracle material, can disrupt living cells like carbon nanotubes and other nanomaterials. Praised for their incredible properties, nanomaterials worry about their potential toxicity, with carbon nanotubes even being vilified by some studies. But according to a recent study from Brown University, graphene is also toxic.
Graphene Risks
A threat to health and the environment. Graphene makes the eye of any researcher who looks at its amazing properties shine. Competing to replace silicon in chips, it is naturally conductive but can be transformed into a semiconductor. It is also very resistant, flexible and inexpensive.
While early toxicity studies of graphene suggested that it did not disrupt living cells, new simulations show the opposite. It turns out that in first-generation graphene toxicity studies, the material was modeled as a square. However, it is precisely the sharp and pointed edges of this two-dimensional material (it is thick sheets of an atom) that make it toxic to living cells.
The team of researchers led by Agnes Kane, director of brown University’s Department of Pathology and Medical Laboratory, began by modeling graphene and its interaction with a living cell through computer simulations.
The defects of its qualities. It has been shown that graphene has the ability to penetrate walls composed of organic cells. Studies were then performed in petri dishes with human lung tissue, skin and immune cells. All of them confirm the computer simulations and indicate that graphene sheets of only 10 micrometers can pierce and then be swallowed up by living cells. From there to say that graphene is a promoter of DNA mutations and cancer, there is only one step.
Limiting Risk, really?
However, the fact remains that many toxic substances (lead, cadmium, mercury, etc.) are already competing in the manufacture of semiconductors. It will therefore be a question of “taming” graphene for controlled use, or even modeling it to limit its toxicity. Agnes Kane says,”The great thing about nanomaterials is that you can design them to have specific desirable properties.”
These graphene toxicity studies are in fact a prelude to the development of safe manufacturing methods and controlled use throughout its life cycle. With this in mind, only nanomaterials have this “malleability” that makes it possible to modify their properties. “Through computer modelling, we hope to modify these materials to make them less toxic. »