Effect of pH and temperature on doxorubicin hydrochloride release from magnetite/graphene oxide nanocomposites

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) with high specific surface area and low toxicity is one of the potential candidates for drug delivery and other biomedical applications. Magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles can become superparamagnetic in a specific range of particle size and can be used for drug delivery using external magnetic field. In this study GO was synthesized through modified Hummers’ method. Fe3O4 nanoparticles were synthesized in-situ on the GO nanosheets. The doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) was loaded on the synthesized nanocomposite and the effect of pH and temperature on the drug release was investigated. Phase analysis, morphology, magnetic properties, drug loading and release behaviour were studied using XRD, FESEM, VSM and UV-Visible spectroscopy, respectively. The XRD pattern confirmed the formation of Fe3O4/GO nanocomposite. The Fe3O4 nanoparticles with mean particle size of 14 nm were dispersed on the GO nanosheets. The Fe3O4 nanoparticles exhibited superparamagnetic behaviour at room temperature. The saturation magnetization of the synthesized nanocomposite was 48 emu/g. The highest amount of drug loading efficiency on the synthesized nanocomposite was found to be 34%. The drug release behaviour showed that the DOX release increases by increasing the temperature from 25 °C to body temperature. The DOX cumulative release in 144 h was 8.84% and 20.98% at 25 °C and 37 °C, respectively. The DOX cumulative release increases from 20.98% to 41.98% by decreasing the pH from 7.4 to 5.4