Synthesis and Characterization of Silver and Strontium Doped Iron Oxide Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery Application

Abstract

Iron oxide nanoparticles have been one of the most researched materials for biomedical application, especially drug delivery due to its incomparable properties like magnetic nature (superparamagnetic), biocompatibility, availability, and ease of synthesis. This research focuses on the synthesis of magnetite, strontium doped iron oxide, silver doped iron oxide and co-doping of strontium and silver doped iron oxide nanoparticles for drug delivery application through coprecipitation and hydrothermal route. Ibuprofen was used as a model drug which is loaded on these bare nanoparticles. These prepared nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM) and UV-VIS spectroscopy. Drug loading is characterized by UV-Vis Spectroscopy whereas cytotoxicity of nanoparticles is analyzed by MTT Assay. XRD results showed formation of all nanoparticles and showing the relevant peaks of synthesized nanoparticles. SEM results confirmed formation of nanoparticles below 100 nanometers (nm) for all samples, desired for biomedical applications (drug delivery). EDX results confirmed step by step (increasing) doping of strontium and silver in iron oxide phase by highlighting increased atomic and weight percent of strontium and silver in results. VSM results show superparamagnetic behavior of Fe3O4 and paramagnetic behavior of all other samples. FTIR results also showed the formation of all nanoparticles. Increased drug loading was observed in the case of silver doped iron oxide nanoparticles (0.25 mole silver doped) which showed maximum encapsulation efficiency of 62.94%. Strontium doped Iron oxide nanoparticles showed faster drug release profile, Sr0.25Fe2.75O4 releases 84.52% drug in 48 hours than Fe3O4 and silver doped iron oxide nanoparticles. The cytotoxicity test showed cell viability of all samples are above 40%, which means they are suitable to use in biomedical applications.