Antibacterial ability, cytocompatibility and hemocompatibility of fluorinated graphene

Abstract Graphene halides are promising two-dimensional systems which have interesting physical and chemical properties. In particular, high quality fluorinated graphene offers a great potential in modulating variable properties by regulating its surface microstructure. Moreover, the fluorine introduction and carbon-fluorine bonding characters will enable some interesting biological response. Here, the biological responses to bacteria and cells of fluorinated graphene were studied. Present work revealed that partially fluorinated graphene behaved satisfactory antibacterial ability. Fluorinated graphene showed well facilitating function to cell adhesion in early period, however, after a longer incubation period, the enhanced intracellular ROS level in rBMSCs on the fully fluorinated graphene gives rise to the decrease of cell viability. It was found that there is no statistical difference in the activity of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and matrix mineralization of rBMSCs on pristine graphene, partially fluorinated graphene and fluorographene. In addition, the introduction of fluorine into pristine graphene plane reduced the adhesion and aggregation of blood platelets due to the attenuation of π–π interaction between material surface and blood protein. The findings in this work revealed that partial fluorinated graphene exhibited better antibacterial ability and cytocompatibility, outperforming pristine graphene and fluorographene.