Recent advances in blood toxin removal technology

Blood circulates throughout the body and thus participates in various functions. When harmful blood toxins are present in the blood, they can seriously affect human health. Safe and effective removal of blood toxins is important but challenging in clinical practice. This article reviews the definition and classification of blood toxins, as well as the recent progress of different kinds of blood toxin removal methods. The discovery and application of various functional ligands have greatly improved the efficiency and specificity of ligand binding to blood toxins through the investigation of their properties and pathogenic mechanisms. Based on traditional carbon and polymer adsorbents, the development of new porous materials, the introduction of nanomotor technology, and the combination of chemical-biological compositions have given the adsorbent materials better adsorption performance, targeting ability, and motility characteristics. Focusing on the clinical application of blood toxin removal, the research on the hemocompatibility and anticoagulant properties of materials has also attracted extensive attention, and the blood purification devices have also shifted towards the direction of lightweight, portability, and integration to fit the actual clinical application scenarios to a greater extent. In addition, challenges and future developments of blood toxin removal technology are also discussed.