First report of antiviral activity of carbon nanofibers: Enhancement of the viral inhibition capacity of calcium alginate films

The World Health Organization has called for new effective and affordable alternative antiviral materials for the prevention and treatment of viral infections. In this regard, calcium alginate has previously shown to possesses antiviral activity against the enveloped double-stranded DNA herpes simplex virus type 1. However, non-enveloped viruses are more resistant to inactivation than enveloped ones. Thus, the viral inhibition capacity of calcium alginate and the effect of adding a minuscule amount of carbon nanomaterials (0.1% w/w ) have been explored here against a non-enveloped double-stranded DNA virus model for the first time. The results of this study showed that neat calcium alginate films are able to inactivate this type of non-enveloped virus and that including that extremely low percentage of carbon nanofibers significantly enhanced its viral inhibition from ~55.6% to 96.33%. This is the first published study to demonstrate CNFs’ antiviral activity. However, adding this small percentage of graphene oxide did not improve the antiviral activity of calcium alginate, although both composite biomaterials possess antiviral and other outstanding properties very promising for biomedical applications.