Antibacterial and Drug Delivery Applications of Two‐Dimensional Nanomaterials‐Based Polymer Nanocomposites

Polymeric nanocomposite (PNC) is a burgeoning material among the most exploited materials in a wide range of biomedical applications starting from antibacterial to drug delivery. The interaction between the polymeric matrix and fillers provides requisite characteristics to the materials to be used in the above said applications. Two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterial: an ultrathin nanomaterial with unique physicochemical properties owing to their layered structure and excellent morphology serves as an amazing nanofiller. A number of 2D nanomaterials such as graphene, graphene oxide (GO), reduced GO (rGO), graphene nanosheet (GNS), MXene, nanoclay, layered double hydroxide (LDH), black phosphorous (BP), boron nitride (BN), graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ), transition metal dichalcogen (TDM), metal organic framework (MOF), and covalent organic framework (COF) are known nano-ranged entities in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications due to their biocompatible and non-toxic properties. Two-dimensional nanomaterials-based material exhibits promising efficiency for fighting against microbial and bacterial infections. In addition to this, 2D nanomaterials-based drug delivery systems show high therapeutic loading and sustainable release owing to its ultrathin layered structure and high surface-to-volume ratio. In the last few decades, a lot of interests have been taken by the researchers on the exploration of 2D nanomaterial-based PNC in pharmaceutical applications. Among various biomedical applications, antibacterial and drug delivery applications of 2D nanomaterial-based PNCs are discussed in this chapter.