Surface Engineering of Iron Oxide Nanoparticle for Drug Delivery: Some Preliminary Results

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION) with suitable surface coatings are increasingly used clinically for many biomedical and bioengineering applications such as magnetic resonance imaging, hyperthermia, drug delivery, tissue repair, cell and tissue targeting and transfection. In the present work, a chemical synthesis of SPION has been performed by co-precipitation technique using a ferrous solution salts Fe3+/Fe2+ =2 mole ratio. The effect of PVA as stabilizer on the structure and morphology of the synthesized nanoparticles is studied by employing different analysis methods, including XRD, DLS, VSM, and TEM. A design-of-experiments methodology has been applied to find an appropriate polymer/iron mass ratio which maintains properties such as magnetic saturation. SPION with average size of 3-10 nm were synthesized. It is observed that the particles exhibit a superparamagnetic behavior which is essential for drug delivery. It was observed that PVA retards the crystal growth; the size of iron oxide nanoparticles decreased in the presence of PVA. In addition, the particle size was found to be influenced by the stirring rate, suggesting that mass transfer has an important influence.