Delivery of anticancer molecules using carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were discovered by Iijima, S in 1991 and are described as long, thin tubes of carbon which have a diameter of approximately 1-3 nm and can extend in length to the micrometres range. The unique physical, electronic, thermal and mechanical properties of CNTs make them extremely useful in many applications including engineering, environmental sciences and biomedicine. CNTs are also remarkably strong, being 100 times as strong as steel whilst only weighing one sixth its weight. CNTs have a wide range of applications; they can conduct electricity and be used as a tool of analysis for fundamental sciences. The wide spectrum of uses of CNTs, being attributed to their exceptional mechanical, thermal and electronic properties are further elucidated in Table 1 (Sahooa et al., 2010). The use of CNTs can have various advantages including the extensive use for improving the properties of polymeric composites. Therefore a great increase of the use of CNTs in polymer composites has been observed from early stages of CNTs discovery (Ajayan et al., 1994) showing improvements in the tensile strength, electrical conductivity, solvent resistance and thermal conductivity.