Drug delivery techniques based on polymers have been investigated for their potential to improve drug solubility, reduce systemic side effects, and controlled and targeted administration at infection site. In this study, we developed a co-polymeric hydrogel composed of graphene sheets (GNS), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and chitosan (CS) that is loaded with methotrexate (MTX) for in vitro liver cancer treatment. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) was employed to check the structural properties and surface morphology. Moreover, tests were conducted on the cytotoxicity, hemolytic activity, release kinetics, swelling behaviour and degradation of hydrogels. A controlled release of drug from hydrogel in PBS at pH 7.4 was examined using release kinetics. Maximal drug release in six hours was 97.34%. The prepared hydrogels did not encourage the HepG2 growth and were non-hemolytic. The current study highlights the potential of GNS-based hydrogel loaded with MTX as an encouraging therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma. HepG2 cell viability of MTX-loaded CS-PVA-GNS hydrogel was (IC50 5.87 µg/200 mL) in comparison to free MTX (IC50 5.03 µg/200 mL). These outcomes recommend that hydrogels with GNS ensure improved drug delivery in cancer microenvironment while lessening adverse consequences on healthy cells.

With the wide potential of organic field-effect transistors in all the modern electronic circuitries, researchers are grappling with the challenge of poor charge transport and hence lower mobility in organic polymers. Low-charge carrier mobility is mainly due to disorder in the molecular packing of organic semiconductors along with other factors, such as impurities, defects and interactions between molecules. The current research work has been conducted to align the molecular chains of poly[4-(4,4-dihexadecyl-4H-cyclopenta[1,2-‌‌‌b:5,4-‌b′]‌dithiophen-2-yl)-alt-[1,2,5]thiadiazolo-[3,4-c]pyridine] (PCDTPT) using directional coating techniques such as dip coating and brush coating on nano-grooved substrates. Long-range order of polymer chains was clearly observed along the direction of brush coating and nanogrooves in optical and atomic force microscope (AFM) images while transmission spectra confirmed decreased pi–pi stacking for the polymer films deposited by this technique. By comparing the mobility performance of brush-coated devices with other techniques, we found a remarkable mobility enhancement of 90 times that of conventional spin-coated device and 24 times enhancement compared with the dip-coated device for the case when the alignment of polymer chains was parallel to the channel. All the fabrication and characterizations were performed in the ambient environment. This study demonstrates a potential approach to align the polymers on long and short ranges hence providing a route for high-performing devices in ambient conditions.