© 2003 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, Volume IIA: Biocompatibility, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 2003

15.3.3 Biocompatibility of Nondiamondoid Carbon

Other nondiamondoid forms of carbon have been widely used as implant materials with some success, though none is expected to serve as well as diamond because their molecular surfaces are inherently more poorly defined. Prosthetic carbon materials have an extensive biocompatibility literature [904, 955] whose summation is beyond the scope of this text, aside from the brief survey presented below. The most common classes of nanomedically-relevant biomedical carbons are glassy or vitreous carbon (Section 15.3.3.1), pyrolytic or low-temperature isotropic carbon (Section 15.3.3.2), graphite (Section 15.3.3.3), and carbon fiber composites (Section 15.3.3.4). Carbon black and India ink (Section 15.3.3.5) are commonly used as inert particulate diagnostic and cell-labeling agents. These surfaces are relevant both in their own right and also as imperfect analogs of sections of diamondoid nanorobot surfaces having aperiodic structures or high rugosity, or which may have partially graphitized. Interestingly, carbon substances can accelerate galvanic corrosion (Section 15.3.3.6) much like metals.

Last updated on 30 April 2004