Controlled drug delivery using the magnetic nanoparticles in non-Newtonian blood vessels

Abstract

Fouling in blood flow is very common and may decrease the blood flow in human body and lead to critical health issues. Upon injury in a blood vessel, the body’s defensive system triggers a process to create a blood clot called “Thrombus”, which prevents bleeding. Blood clots are formed by a combination of blood cells, platelets, and fibrins. In this study, we investigate a controlled drug delivery using the magnetic nanoparticles in blood vessels under the influence of magnetic fields. For this purpose the Maxwell and the Navier-Stokes equations for the system are solved. In contrary to the previous studies it is assumed that the blood is a non-Newtonian fluid. The number of particles has been considered large enough to gain statistically robust results and the effects of various parameters on the settlement of nanoparticles on the surface of a bump in the blood vessel by the magnetic field is inspected. It is revealed that considering non-Newtonian characteristics is essential in modeling such systems and the results may be very different from those obtained by assuming the blood as a Newtonian fluid. Also, it is found that the magnetic field intensity and the magnetic field permeability coefficient have important effects on the settlement of nanoparticles.