Soft-templated mesoporous carbon is morphologically a non-nano type of carbon. It is a relatively newer variety of biomaterial, which has already demonstrated its successful role in drug delivery applications. To investigate the toxicity and biocompatibility, we introduced three types of mesoporous carbons with varying synthesis conditions and pore textural properties. We compared the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area and pore width and performed cytotoxicity experiments with HeLa cells, cell viability studies with fibroblast cells and hemocomapatibility studies. Cytotoxicity tests reveal that two of the carbons are not cytotoxic, with cell survival over 90%. The mesoporous carbon with the highest surface area showed slight toxicity (∼ 70% cell survival) at the highest carbon concentration of 500 μg/mL. Fibroblast cell viability assays suggested high and constant viability of over 98% after 3 days with no apparent relation with materials property and good visible cell-carbon compatibility. No hemolysis (<1%) was confirmed for all the carbon materials. Protein adsorption experiments with bovine serum albumin (BSA) and fibrinogen revealed a lower protein binding capacity of 0.2-0.6 mg/m(2) and 2-4 mg/m(2) for BSA and fibrinogen, respectively, with lower binding associated with an increase in surface area. The results of this study confirm the biocompatibility of soft-templated mesoporous carbons.
Keywords: biocompatibility; cell viability; cytotoxicity; hemolysis; mesoporous carbon; protein adsorption.