In-situ self-assembly of sandwich-like Ti3C2 MXene/gold nanorods nanosheets for synergistically enhanced near-infrared responsive drug delivery

As a novel two-dimensional material, Ti 3 C 2 MXenes has attracted lots of attention in biomedical filed for its large surface area and excellent near-infrared (NIR) responsiveness. In this paper, an in-situ growth and self-assembly approach was employed to combine gold nanorods (GNRs) with Ti 3 C 2 nanosheets to prepare intelligent sandwich-like Ti 3 C 2 @GNRs/PDA/Ti 3 C 2 nanohybrids. Compared with Ti 3 C 2 nanosheets, in-situ growth Ti 3 C 2 @GNRs possessed excellent photothermal conversion efficiency (45.89%), caused by the distinguished photothermal synergy between GNRs and Ti 3 C 2 nanosheets. Moreover, the high specific surface area of Ti 3 C 2 MXene and outstanding adhesion performance of PDA endowed Ti 3 C 2 @GNRs/PDA/Ti 3 C 2 nanohybrids with superior drug loading ability for doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) (95.88%). Besides, Ti 3 C 2 @GNRs/PDA/Ti 3 C 2 nanohybrids displayed distinct pH/NIR responsive drug release properties upon NIR irradiation owing to the strong π-π stacking interaction between Ti 3 C 2 @GNRs/PDA/Ti 3 C 2 and DOX, along with the excellent NIR-responsiveness of Ti 3 C 2 @GNRs/PDA/Ti 3 C 2 . This paper offers a practicable method to prepare Ti 3 C 2 MXene-based nanoplatform with synergistically enhanced NIR drug release behavior, brilliant biocompatibility and high drug loading efficiency, which is expected to be applied in remote cancer therapy.