Development of printable bio-carbon hybrid nanomaterials for biomedical devices

Abstract

Fabricating nanoscale hybrid materials maintaining each of own unique functional advantages often makes it possible to address problems that could not be solved utilizing only one type of materials. Therefore, developing hybrid ink provides an attractive route to fabricate high performance printed devices. A carbon nanotube is one of the promising materials for the use in the printed devices due to its excellent properties resulted from its unique structure. However, it is electrically neutral, and intact SWNTs are not readily accessible to the integration of biological compounds. In order to overcome this limitation, biological material was addressed. Generally biological materials are charged particle, and they can provide precise control of interactions between peptides and other material, result in tunable property for fabricate nano-structured composite. In the point of view, functionalizing of SWNTs by addressing biological materials provides an attractive approach to create new printable hybrid material system. In this thesis work, new approaches to functionalize single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with biological materials in printing process are presented. The printable windows are estimated through numerical simulation and dimensional analysis. And the SWNT/M13 hybrid ink was formulated to functionalize SWNTs in aqueous solution. Using the printed electrode as a platform, three kind of biosensor were fabricated with layer by layer methods. Moreover, all-printed DET biosensor and dual monitoring biosensor are developed by utilizing the genetically engineered M13 virus. High sensitivity and selectivity from high efficiency of DET make it possible to detect glucose in sweat. The fundamental understanding and new approaches this work presents will provide new insight into fabricating devices in printing technology.