Nanoporous SiC: A Candidate Semi-Permeable Material for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

We have fabricated free-standing SiC nanoporous membranes in both p -type and n -type material. We showed that these membranes will permit the diffusion of proteins up to 29000 Daltons, while excluding larger proteins. By using radioactively labeled albumin, we also show that porous SiC has very low protein adsorption, comparable to the best commercially available polymer nanoporous membrane.

AFM and Cell Staining to Assess the In Vitro Biocompatibility of Opaque Surfaces

“…Although some literature exists on the biocompatibility of amorphous (a-SiC) and polycrystalline (poly-SiC), single crystal SiC needed more investigation (Kalnins et al, 2002;Li et al, 2005;Rosenbloom et al, 2004). This subsection reports on previously published research evaluating biocompatibility of cubic silicon carbide, 3C-SiC, nanocrystalline diamond (NCD), and silicon (Si) with immortalized neural cell lines (Frewin et al, 2009b).…”

Synthesis and properties of porous SiC ceramics

“…Porous SiC has been introduced as a potential candidate for in vivo membrane applications. 8 Attention has been focused on the suitability of SiC ceramics with pore sizes of tens of nanometers as a membrane material for implantable microdevices in biomedical applications.…”

Photoelectrochemistry of 4H–SiC in KOH solutions

“…With a lattice constant and thermal expansion coefficient close to those of GaN, SiC is also an attractive substrate for group III nitride-based optoelectronic devices, such as blue lightemitting diodes and diode lasers [2]. Furthermore, extensive work is under way to apply porous SiC in biomedical technology, such as protein dialysis and bone tissue engineering, and in fuel cell technology [3][4][5].…”