Abstract
The use of magnetic nanoparticles in the treatment of cancer using alternating current hyperthermia therapy has shown the potential to replace or supplement conventional cancer treatments, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which have severe side effects. Though the nearly spherical sub-10 nm iron oxide nanoparticles have their approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, their low heating efficiency and removal from the body after hyperthermia treatment raises serious concerns. The majority of magnetic hyperthermia research is working to create nanomaterials with improved heating efficiency and long blood circulation time. Here, we have demonstrated a simple strategy to enhance the heating efficiency of sub-10 nm Fe3O4 nanoparticles through the replacement of Fe+2 ions with Co+2 ions. Magnetic and hyperthermia experiments on the 7 nm Fe3−xCoxO4 (x = 0–1) nanoparticles showed that the blocking temperature, the coercivity at 10 K, and the specific absorption rate followed a similar trend with a maximum at x = 0.75, which is in corroboration with the theoretical prediction. Our study revealed that the heating efficiency of the Fe3−xCoxO4 (x = 0–1) nanoparticles varies not just with the size and saturation magnetization but also with the magnetocrystalline anisotropy of the particles.
Highlights
Functional magnetic nanostructures are of high significance for research professionals working in the disciplines of data storage [1], catalysis [2,3], environmental remediation [4], and basic science [5,6,7,8] and for those working in biomedicine [9,10,11,12,13]
We have demonstrated that the heating efficiency (SAR) of the Fe3−xCoxO4 (x = 0–1) nanoparticles improves with an increase in Co content up to x = 0.75, following which it decreases with a further increase of the Co content
Magnetic and hyperthermia measurements on the 7 nm series of spherical Fe3−xCoxO4 nanoparticles have shown that the TB and specific absorption rate (SAR) follow a similar trend with a maximum at x = 0.75
Summary
Functional magnetic nanostructures are of high significance for research professionals working in the disciplines of data storage [1], catalysis [2,3], environmental remediation [4], and basic science [5,6,7,8] and for those working in biomedicine [9,10,11,12,13]. In the treatment involving magnetic hyperthermia, an external AC magnetic field is applied for heating the magnetic nanoparticles in a cancerous area in order to destroy or deactivate the cancerous cells and cause no harm to the healthy ones, resulting in minimum collateral damage. This technique has already shown promising results in cancer therapy; the low heating efficiency of the traditionally used spherical iron oxides, magnetite (Fe3O4) and maghemite (γ-Fe2O3) nanoparticles, obstructs their wide application [18,19]. There is an increase in demand for highly efficient magnetic nanoparticles so that a minimal dose of nanoparticles can be used to achieve the therapeutic temperature range (40–44 ◦C) to kill or deactivate the cancerous cells without damaging the healthy ones [21,22,23,24,25,26]
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