Synthesis and characterization of potassium titanate nanowire-entangled smart bioscaffolds.
by Zhang, Lu; Alismail, Hanan; Hu, Zhijian; Cole, Parker; Tian, Ryan
In literature, much has been reported on entangling the TiO2-based nanofibers into versatile bioscaffolds and on electrochem. biosensors based on the nanowires, but little on combining these two into a quant. sensory bioscaffold to date. In the present study, titanate nanowires were successfully formed on the titanium from a one-step hydrothermal process at an elevated temp. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) data have proven that the nanowires length and entanglement were widely varied on demand. In parallel, a new electrochem. cell was designed and 3D-printed for rapidly detecting the impedance signal of the nanowire-bioscaffolds. Further studies are actively undergoing for directly differentiating both cancer and normal cells' morphologies, surface structures, etc. Based on new preliminary data, it's promising to develop soon a low-cost, multiplex platform for real-time and label-free detection of cell types and cell growth (or apoptosis) status on the bioscaffolds.