Synthesis and Characterization of CoFe2O4 & NiFe2O4 Magnetic Nanoparticles for Various Biomedical Applications: Cell Viability and Cell Death Evaluations

Abstract

In this study, we report the synthesis and characterization studies of amine functionalized CoFe2O4and NiFe2O4nanoparticles (NPs). The synthesis process was accomplished by refluxing metal chloride precursors in ethylene glycol in presence of sodium acetate and ethanolamine. The average crystallite sizes of the synthesized particles are found to be in the range of 8-10 nm. The synthesized particles are characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) technique, FTIR, Raman and UV-visible spectroscopy for crystal structure, average size, surface area, phase and functional group determination. The surface morphology and elemental composition were studied by Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) respectively. Magnetic behavior upto fields of 3T at room temperature measured in PPMS magnetometer showed the superparamagnetic behavior of these particles. Analysis of cytotoxicity was carried out by examining their effect on cell viability of human peripheral blood lymphocytes so as to assess biocompatibility for various biomedical applications.