CHITosan/CARbon nanocomposites as versatile platform for bone tissue engineering, food packaging and proton membrane for fuel cells (CHITOCARB).

Project leaders

Mariagrazia Raucci, Yevgen Prokhorov

Agreement

MESSICO - CINVESTAV - Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional

Call

CNR-CINVESTAV 2017-2018

Department

Chemical sciences and materials technology

Thematic area

Chemical sciences and materials technology

Status of the project

New

Research proposal

The scientific aim of the present proposal concerns the fabrication of conductive biocomposites with a bioactive signal obtained by combining two simple technologies based on sol-gel or simulated body fluid solution (SBF) and freeze-drying approaches. In this way, the electrical stimulation will be used as a promising and powerful tool to manipulate or modulate cellular activity and promote bone formation. It has been demonstrated, in fact, that electrical charges could change when cells are cultured on conducting materials, thus conducting materials can be used to electrically stimulate tissue thereby accelerating bone formation and repair as well as increasing the rate of protein synthesis and expression of osteogenic markers. Innovative feature of the project is represented by the bioactive signal which will be obtained through the synthesis of hydroxyapatite nanoparticles (HAp) with carbonaceous materials like graphene oxide (GO) and carbon nanotubes (CNT) subsequently embedded into a biodegrable polymer as chitosan (CS). The developed innovative nanocomposites, at different compositions of CS, HAp, CNT, GO, rGO, will be studied to shed light into their structures and morphology as well as into their electrical, mechanical, barrier and percolations properties and biocompatibility. Such nanocomposites, in fact, are increasingly important for applications in biomaterials for bone tissue engineering and skin regeneration and also for food packaging application for their enhanced barrier properties and for fuel cell applications for their proton conductivity.
It is noteworthy that composites containing conducting fillers (i.e CNT, rGO) in non-conductive polymers, become electrically conductive when the filler content exceeds a critical value; this value is known as the percolation threshold concentration. CNT and rGO polymer composites exhibit very low percolation threshold for electrical conductivity (between 0.05 to few wt. %). Similarly, a mechanical percolation threshold is also observed, even if when the concentration of filler exceeds that one of percolation, mechanical properties of composites are saturated or even decrease. Structure, electrical (conductivity, dielectric constant, dielectric loss, electrical percolation threshold and their dependence on wt.% of fillers), barrier and mechanical material properties will be investigated in thin-film forms, while the biological properties will be performed in thin-films and 3D-scaffold (obtained by quenching to -80 °C and freeze-drying).Structure of synthesized nanocomposites will be characterized by morphological (SEM, TEM, AFM), physico-chemical (FTIR, XPS, XRD) and calorimetric (DSC,TGA) analyses.
The interactions of CS's NH3 and OH groups with CNT, HAp, GO, rGO will be investigated using high frequency (100MHz-3GHz) dielectric spectroscopy, which allow to determine the freedom and activation energy of these groups.
The biological studies,will be performed by using human Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hMSCs). To investigate the effect of nanocomposites on osteogenic differentiation, the expression of early (alkaline phosphatase, ALP) and later (Osteocalcin, OCN) markers will be evaluated with and without electrical stimuli.
The proposed project is particularly important to foster scientific collaboration between the two involved institutes whose expertise are exceedingly complementary. The team at Cinvestav Queretaro (Queretaro, Mexico) will offer its expertise and use of equipments for the investigation of electrical, dielectrical, relaxations and percolation properties of nanocomposites. The team at Institute of Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials (IPCB-CNR Naples, Italy) will offer its expertise and use of equipments for the investigation of mechanical, barrier and physico-chemical properties of nanocomposites as well as a Tissue Engineering&Cell Cultures laboratory for the evaluation of biological properties of biomaterials in terms of cytotoxycity, biocompatibility and bioactivity. The proposed research project is of strategic importance to Mexico and Italy and fits within the European Commission document about the technologies in H2020: "Preparing for our future: Developing a common strategy for key enabling technologies in the EU" (COM2009/0512). Our proposal shows cross and multidisciplinary activities "multi-KETs" in different strategic area like Health, Advanced Materials and Nanotechnologies. Furthermore, this proposal in the biomedical field, improves health and quality of life, in particular reducing hospitalization, pain and surgery-related infections through minimally-invasive procedures, and will radically reduce health costs associated to bone fractures. CHITOCARB will have major socio-economic potential benefits, particularly in terms of prolonging life and reducing the level of pain and suffering inflicted on patients. These aspects are due to development of biocompatible and biodegrable materials for bone tissue regeneration. Moreover, since one of the possible application is related to the use of these materials for fuel cells, the proposed topic also fits within one of the cooperation accords (energy sector) signed on July 4th 2016 in Mexico City between Italian President, Sergio Mattarella, and his local counterpart, Enrique Peña Nieto with the aim to strengthen bilateral cooperation. From a general point of view, the proposed challenging research activities represent the first important step for the establishment of a more comprehensive cooperation between the two institutions, which in the middle-term could allow the dissemination of the findings via the publication of the obtained results in high-impact internationally peer-reviewed journals as well as prestigious international conferences such as ESB (European Society for Biomaterials), TERMIS World Congress (Tissue Engineering&Regenerative Medicine), AFM(Advanced Functional Materials) and ICAMR (International Conference on Advanced Material Research).

Research goals

The overall objective of CHITOCARB is the development of the fundamental and technological knowledge for the rational designing, preparation and validation of conductive biocomposites in which electrical stimulation is used as a promising and powerful tool to promote bone formation. Such nanocomposites can also have applications in the food packaging sector for their enhanced barrier properties and in fuel cell sector for their proton conductivity. The main scientific objectives are the following:
- Investigation of structural, mechanical, electrical properties and biocompatibility of HAp-GO, CS-HAp-GO, CS-HAp-CNT nanocomposites for bone tissue regeneration.
- Investigation on CS-GO, CS-rGO and CS-CNT as high gas barrier film for application in the packaging industry.Investigation on conductivity properties of CS-rGO films for their application as conductive packing films.
- Investigation of proton conductivity mechanism in CS-GO and CS-rGO films for application as membranes for fuel cell.
From a strategic point of view, the CHITOCARB is also aimed to:
- promote the exchange of permanent and young researchers involved in the project and make synergistic assistance in raising their scientific qualification;
- integrate complementary research facilities;
- co-publish papers in the top-impact Journals of chemistry and material science;
- jointly apply for international research projects in the field of Biomaterials, Sustainable Chemistry, Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials.

Last update: 05/06/2025