Research Progress on Application of Functional Carbon Nanotubes in Food and Biomedical Fields

Carbon Nanotubes(CNTs),also known as buckytubes,are a new type of nanomaterials.Due to their stable properties,easy to be modified and entry into cells,CNTs have broad applications in food and biomedical fields.Studies have demonstrated that the CNTs have poor dispersity and have certain toxicity.Functional modification can improve the dispersion of the CNTs in solution.In addition,with the development of the research,the biocompatibility assessment of CNTs has attracted increasing attention.In this review,the basic structure of CNTs and performance were briefly described,the research progress on application of CNTs in the fields of food(such as pesticide and veterinary drug residue detection,food additive detection,microbial detection,transgenic food detection,etc) and biomedical(such as biosensor,drug delivery carrier,tumor therapy,biological imaging,biological scaffolds,etc.) were mainly introduced.The existing biological-compatibility problems were also discussed and proposed possible ways to solve them.Finally,the development tendency of CNTs in the fields of food and biomedicine is prospected.