Diana Ciuculescu-Pradines
University of Toulouse, France
Title: Evaluation of the coordination of a phosphonic acid-based ligand to the surface of zerovalent iron nanoparticles
Biography
Biography: Diana Ciuculescu-Pradines
Abstract
Iron-based nanoparticles are very popular materials due to their interest for biomedical applications such as magnetic resonance imaging, magnetic hyperthermia, drug delivery or in other areas of nanomedicine. However the potential of these nanoparticles is limited by the poor magnetic properties of iron oxides from which they are made of. Zerovalent iron nanoparticles would be more suited given their higher magnetization properties but the synthesis of stable colloidal solutions in water is very challenging due to dipolar interactions and oxidation.
Zerovalent iron nanoparticles, with good control of size and cristallinity, are synthetised in non biological media (organic solvants) and present at their surface different coordinated ligands used as stabilizers. Their transfer into water which is mandatory for biomedical applications requires to master the complexity of their surface chemistry in order to avoid their dissolution or total oxidation in aqueous medium.[1] Few work has been done in this direction and only silica coating was succesfully experimented up-to-now,[2] confirming that aggregation of zerovalent iron nanoparticles could be prevented and their oxidation limited in water.
As an alternative to silica coating we present here the potential of a poly(ethylene oxide)-phosphonic acid ligand [3] to coordinate onto the surface of zerovalent iron nanoparticles. The anchoring of this ligand allows to passivate the iron nanoparticles and to impart them with water solubility thus affording a well-suited nanomaterial for biomedical applications. The strategy of the synthesis which takes benefit from coordination chemistry concepts [4] and the characterization of the so-obtained nanomaterial will be detailed.