Reaction time-induced improvement in hyperthermia properties of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles with different sizes

Chemical reaction conditions involved in the formation of nanoscale materials can enormously affect their properties. However, the correlation between the reaction time (RT) and hyperthermia properties of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) is yet to be understood. Here, we synthesize cobalt ferrite magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) using a thermal decomposition technique with different RT values. The variation in RT (70-180 min) is designed in such a way that the nucleation and growth process can be affected and improved considerably, achieving monodisperse spherical-like MNPs with superparamagnetic nature as confirmed by first-order reversal curve analysis. Hyperthermia properties are studied for cobalt ferrite MNP ferrofluids with different concentrations (1-5 mg/ml) at various magnetic field strengths (100-400 Oe). We obtain a maximum specific loss power (SLP) value of 510 W/g for MNPs synthesized using RT = 150 min. By extracting magnetic characteristic, we find a correlation between SLP and coercive field values as a function of RT, which can shed light on subtle changes in hyperthermia properties of MNPs.