Biomedical investigation of CNT based coatings

Owing to their unique properties, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have emerged as a promising material for biomedical applications. Especially, CNT based coatings have recently made great achievements, which have been mainly stated in this review. They can offer favorable condition to induce the cellular functions. They can possess excellent packing density without any macroscopic porosity within the film on metals. The good bonding strength between them and the metal substrates could be achieved. Addition of CNTs can reinforce the composite coatings and the CNTs-reinforced coatings are expected to be promising for high load-bearing orthopedic implants. Furthermore, based on their unique properties, CNTs can attach to the surfaces of dentin and cementum but not to the surface of enamel, suggesting that the teeth coated with CNTs should be a possible candidate for dental materials. In addition, CNTs can be coated on polymers, bioglasses, collagen, etc. to prepare bioactive, electrically conductive 3D scaffolds for tissue engineering. Besides the current achievements, CNT based coatings possess big space to further develop, such as functionalized CNT based coatings, mineralized CNT coatings, etc., which suggesting that CNTs coatings have emerged as promising methods and potentially reward opportunities to develop the next generation of engineered materials for biomedical applications.