Synthesis of magnetite nanoparticles coated with polyvinyl alcohol for hyperthermia application

One of the main challenges in hyperthermia treatment is how to improve the heating performance of nanoparticles with high specific loss power (SLP). To tackle this challenge, magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) and coated magnetite nanoparticles with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA@MNPs) were fabricated via ultrasonic-assisted coprecipitation technique. The obtained nanoparticles were characterized by using FT-IR, TEM, TGA, XRD, ICP-OES, DLS, zeta potential, VSM and UV–Vis spectroscopy. The self-heating properties of the MNPs and PVA@MNPs were studied under alternating magnetic strength, frequency and induction time. MNPs and PVA@MNPs showed that the nanoparticles have a nearly spherical shape ranging between 12.3 ± 3.2 and 10 ± 2.5 nm, respectively. The higher value of zeta potentials of PVA@MNPs (− 11.49 mV) implies that the nanoparticle may show good stability in aqueous solutions. The magnetization saturation values were 41.98 and 45.08 emu g−1 for MNPs and PVA@MNPs, respectively. The prepared nanoparticles showed small coercivity and a remanence magnetization due to the soft magnetic nature of the prepared nanoparticles. The highest SLP value was 163.81 W g−1 for PVA@MNPs, while the lowest SLP value was 4.84 W g−1 for MNPs under the same magnetic field condition. The presence of PVA shell improved the particle stability and the magnetization for PVA@ MNPs. This successfully caused an improvement in the heating performance and magnetic hyperthermia as well. These features make the prepared PVA@MNPs in this study applicable as hyperthermic agents for biomedical applications.