Antifungal and Antibacterial Properties of Graphene-based Nanomaterials: A Mini-review

Abstract

In recent years, the availability and use of various antibiotics and antimicrobial agents have resulted in increase of drug resistant pathogens. Therefore, scientist's attention has been diverted to find a suitable replacement for antimicrobial treatment. Graphene (G), as a two-dimensional (2D) carbon-based nanomaterials (CBNs) has a unique physicochemical properties including thermal, optical and electrically conductive activities along with high surface-to-volume ratio and mechanical strength. Also, they have gained significant attention in biomedical application, such as regenerative medicine and drug delivery carriers. With the emergent of nanomaterials over the past decades, there has been a growing interest in using GBNs to develop new antifungal and antimicrobial nanomaterials due to their diverse antifungal and bactericidal mechanisms and relatively low cytotoxicity towards mammalian cells. Numerous reviews on GBNs are available with different perspective. In this review, we summarized the latest progresses towards an understanding of the antifungal and antibacterial properties of GBNs for developing a new antifungal and antibacterial materials.