MXene nanosheets as a novel nanomaterial with antimicrobial applications: A literature review

Nowadays, indiscriminate and inappropriate use of antibiotic drugs caused a smart and developing road at national and global levels of resistance among bacterial or viral pathogens. According to the report of the World Health Organization, the world exposes a crisis of bacterial antibiotic resistance. The challenge that twentieth-century human faces and he is forced to devise strategies to control and prevent it. The application of nanoparticles with antimicrobial properties can be considered as a solution in this field. Today, with the development of nanotechnology, a wide range of nanoparticles has been produced, each of which has various physicochemical properties as well as various toxic effects. MXene as a new family of two-dimensional materials exhibit remarkable antimicrobial effects and can be considered metal-based bactericides, antiviral, anti-inflammatory effects, and anti-cancer. Examples of effective factors in the antimicrobial efficacy of MXene nanosheets include the size, exposure time, concentration, surface charge and surface area, the type of etching method, exfoliation conditions, epitaxy effects and thickness. In addition, for the antimicrobial assessment, we have to pay attention to the viral genotypes and mutations, or the type of bacterial target. Here, we reviewed the literature introducing the synthesis of MXene from MAX and non-MAX phase precursors, junction MXene nanosheets with other nanoparticles and so the antibacterial effects of each of them according to the published reports until now.