Prospects and Challenges of Graphene-Based Nanomaterials in Nanomedicine

Graphene is considered to be the ‘wonder material’ because of many unique and fascinating properties, such as high mechanical strength (200 times stronger than steel. Young’s modulus ~ 1100 Gpa), exceptionally thin nanostructure (1 million times thinner than human hair and world’s first twodimensional material made up of single layer of hexagonally arranged sp2-bonded carbon atoms, cf. (Figure 1), extraordinary electrical conductivity (mobility of charge carriers ~ 200,000 cm2 V-1 s-1), very high specific surface area (~ 2630 m2/g), excellent thermal conductivity (~ 5000 W/m/K), highly stretchable, fully flexible yet impermeable, chemically inert, and intrinsically biocompatible [1, 2]. Also the advent of simple, cost-effective and scalable fabrication techniques for single layer graphene made it one of the most attractive and sought after nonmaterial’s in recent times [3], having applications in a wide range of fields including nanoelectronics, composite materials, energy technology, sensors, and catalysis, among others [4-6].