Self-propelled manganese oxide-based catalytic micromotors for drug delivery

A manganese oxide-based catalytic tubular micromotor (PEDOT/MnO2) is described that displays effective autonomous motion in hydrogen peroxide with high speed (318.80 µm s−1) and can operate in very low levels of fuel, down to 0.4%. The polymer bilayer micromotor also exhibits efficient locomotion in different biological media including bovine serum albumin and bovine serum. Moreover, the micromotor is applied to deliver a chemotherapeutic anticancer drug, camptothecin, using electrostatic interactions, offering considerable potential for diverse clinical and biomedical applications such as drug delivery for theranostic microsystems.