Ultrafine graphene oxide–CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticle composite as T 1 and T 2 contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging

• Published in: RSC advances 2016, Vol.6 (21), p.17423-17429
• Main Authors: Venkatesha, N., Poojar, Pavan, Ashwini, R., Qurishi, Yasrib, Geethanath, Sairam, Srivastava, Chandan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2046-2069; 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/C5RA27186J

Graphene oxide–CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticle composites were synthesized using a two step synthesis method in which graphene oxide was initially synthesized followed by precipitation of CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles in a reaction mixture containing graphene oxide. Samples were extracted from the reaction mixture at different times at 80 °C. All the extracted samples contained CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles formed over the graphene oxide. It was observed that the increase in the reflux time significantly increased the saturation magnetization value for the superparamagnetic nanoparticles in the composite. It was also noticed that the size of the nanoparticles increased with increase in the reflux time. Transverse relaxivity of the water protons increased monotonically with increase in the reflux time. Whereas, the longitudinal relaxivity value initially increased and then decreased with the reflux time. Graphene oxide–CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticle composites also exhibit biocompatibility towards the MCF-7 cell line.