Chitosan-Clay Bio-Nanocomposites

Abstract

The present review chapter includes an overview on the current state-of-art of chitosan-clay based bio-nanocomposites. In the same way than conventional nanocomposites, these biohybrid materials also exhibit both structural and functional properties together with biocompatibility and biodegradability, which can be of great interest for different applications. Four main areas of interest have been identified showing examples of applications as green nanocomposites, bio-nanocomposites addressed to biomedical purposes (tissue engineering and drug delivery), environmental remediation and electroanalytical devices. Finally, examples of bio-nanocomposites based on chitosan assembled to other inorganic solids have been introduced to show the versatility of this biopolymer for development of diverse type of advanced functional materials.