Superparamagnetic Fe/Au Nanoparticles and Their Feasibility for Magnetic Hyperthermia

• Published in: Applied sciences 2021-07, Vol.11 (14), p.6637
• Main Authors: Sanad, Mohamed F., Meneses-Brassea, Bianca P., Blazer, Dawn S., Pourmiri, Shirin, Hadjipanayis, George C., El-Gendy, Ahmed A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biocompatibility; Cancer therapies; Core-shell particles; core/shell; Crystal structure; Ethanol; Fe/Au nanoparticles; Feasibility; Fever; Gold; Gold coatings; Hyperthermia; Hysteresis loops; Image transmission; Magnetic fields; magnetic nanoparticle hyperthermia; Magnetic properties; Magnetic saturation; Morphology; Nanoparticles; Particle size; Potassium; Room temperature; Scanning electron microscopy; Shells; Spherical shells; superparamagnetic; Transmission electron microscopy
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app11146637

Today, magnetic hyperthermia constitutes a complementary way to cancer treatment. This article reports a promising aspect of magnetic hyperthermia addressing superparamagnetic and highly Fe/Au core-shell nanoparticles. Those nanoparticles were prepared using a wet chemical approach at room temperature. We found that the as-synthesized core shells assembled with spherical morphology, including face-centered-cubic Fe cores coated and Au shells. The high-resolution transmission microscope images (HRTEM) revealed the formation of Fe/Au core/shell nanoparticles. The magnetic properties of the samples showed hysteresis loops with coercivity (HC) close to zero, revealing superparamagnetic-like behavior at room temperature. The saturation magnetization (MS) has the value of 165 emu/g for the as-synthesized sample with a Fe:Au ratio of 2:1. We also studied the feasibility of those core-shell particles for magnetic hyperthermia using different frequencies and different applied alternating magnetic fields. The Fe/Au core-shell nanoparticles achieved a specific absorption rate of 50 W/g under applied alternating magnetic field with amplitude 400 Oe and 304 kHz frequency. Based on our findings, the samples can be used as a promising candidate for magnetic hyperthermia for cancer therapy.