Graphene synthesis in obtaining a safe particle size in blood circulation system

Graphene is an inorganic nanomaterial that is biocompatible and safe in certain concentration. Since it is proposed as drug delivery or scaffold material, the size of the graphene sheets should be considered for the toxicity in the blood circulation. Permanent damage to cell membranes can occur due to the large size of nanoparticles through binding with cellular membrane proteins. Its synthesis process can modify the size of graphene nanoparticles. This paper presents a graphene synthesis from graphite powder that consider particle size change as induced by sonication. The synthesis was conducted by mechanical exfoliation method using a kitchen blender and a water bath sonicator. The study aimed to predict a safe lateral dimension of graphene nanoparticles. The characterizations were performed by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and Particle Size Analysis (PSA). The results showed that prolonged sonication time had caused defects to the graphene layers. The mean of graphene layers lateral decreases from 2973.7 nm to 655 nm after 120‘ sonication time. We proposed a simple regression model of the sonication time (x) to the lateral dimension change (y) and found that we can obtain to obtain a mean graphene lateral dimension of 40 nm after 146‘ sonication.