Insights into bismuthene and antimonene as cisplatin drug carriers: A theoretical comparative investigation

While effective targeted delivery is a challenge in nanomedicine for the delivery of anti-cancer drugs, this work focuses on the potential use of Bismuthene and antimonene nanosheets as nanocarriers for cisplatin anti-cancer using DFT methods. The results indicate that, compared to antimonene, bismuthene demonstrates significantly better physical stability, drug release rate, solubility, and biocompatibility, making it an excellent candidate for drug delivery systems. The parallel and perpendicular orientations of the anticancer drug were adsorbed on both nanosheets; the parallel configuration was the most energetically favored with an adsorption energy of −0.79 eV at the parallel site. A charge transfer from the drug to the bismuthene sheet is also revealed by the electronic charge analysis and DOS calculation, thus confirming efficient drug adsorption. Modeling a proton attack on the drug and the carrier surface near the adsorption sites was performed to model drug release, showing the stability and potential of bismuthene in this aspect of drug release mechanisms. Further, with an approach to studying its interactions with biomolecules, interactions of the drug molecule have been analyzed with amino acids, showing that drugs interact efficiently. Further assessments concerning work function, recovery time, electron localization function, and frontier molecular orbital analyses leave no doubt that bismuthene has beneficial features over antimonene. These thorough assessments present bismuthene as a more promising nanocarrier for the delivery of anti-cancer drugs and open a potential pathway to enhance the efficacy of strategies against cancer treatment.