Photo by The Rise of Borophene: A New Era in 2D Materials
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A New Challenger to Graphene
Move over, graphene. There’s a new, improved two-dimensional material in the lab. Borophene, the atomically thin version of boron first synthesized in 2015, is more conductive, thinner, lighter, stronger, and more flexible than graphene, the 2D version of carbon. Now, researchers at Penn State have made the material potentially more useful by imparting chirality — or handedness — on it, which could make for advanced sensors and implantable medical devices.
Borophene’s unique structure allows for effective magnetic and electronic control.
Chirality: The Key to Unlocking Borophene’s Potential
Chirality refers to similar but not identical physicality, like left and right hands. In molecules, chirality can make biological or chemical units exist in two versions that cannot be perfectly matched, as in a left and right mitten. They can mirror each other precisely, but a left mitten will never fit the right hand as well as it fits the left hand.
Borophene’s Biological Interactions
The researchers synthesized borophene platelets — similar to the cellular fragments found in blood — using solution state synthesis, which involves exposing a powdered version of the material in a liquid to one or more external factors, such as heat or pressure, until they combine into the desired product.
Borophene platelets synthesized using solution state synthesis.
Virtual Healthcare Initiative
In other news, Blackwell Captive Solutions has partnered with ful.Health to deliver CirrusMD’s virtual healthcare to self-funded groups in the US. This initiative not only enhances efficiency but also supports early diagnosis and treatment, improving health outcomes and reducing healthcare costs.
CirrusMD’s physician-led care and guidance model connects users to a doctor in less than 60 seconds, 24/7.
The Future of Healthcare
This study was just the beginning. We have several projects underway to develop biosensors, drug delivery systems, and imaging applications for borophene. According to Pan, this finding could inform future applications, such as development of higher-resolution medical imaging with contrast that could precisely track cell interactions or better drug delivery with pinpointed material-cell interactions.
Borophene’s unique structure allows for effective magnetic and electronic control, making it a promising material for future healthcare applications.
