Biomedical Applications of Clay

Traditional applications of clay mineral mainly revolved around cosmetics and industrial products, but their scope of application is continuously expanding into pharmaceutics including drug delivery and tissue engineering. The interest in clays amongst the scientific community has increased dramatically in recent years due to its composition and structure which can be easily modified to serve different purposes. Largely due to structural flexibility and its small particle size, clay nanostructure can be modified to tune rheological and mechanical properties, and can entrap moisture to suit a particular application. Additionally, interest in the synthesis of polymer-clay nanocomposites in tissue engineering is growing as it is cheap, easily available, and environmentally-friendly. The structure of clay allows the interclaysion of different biomolecules between the clay layers. These biomolecules can be released in a controlled manner which can be utilised in drug delivery and cosmetic applications.