Advances of functional nanomaterials for magnetic resonance imaging and biomedical engineering applications

Functional nanomaterials have been widely used in biomedical fields due to their good biocompatibility, excellent physicochemical properties, easy surface modification, and easy regulation of size and morphology. Functional nanomaterials for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can target specific sites in vivo and more easily detect disease-related specific biomarkers at the molecular and cellular levels than traditional contrast agents, achieving a broad application prospect in MRI. This review focuses on the basic principles of MRI, the classification, synthesis and surface modification methods of contrast agents, and their clinical applications to provide guidance for designing novel contrast agents and optimizing the contrast effect. Furthermore, the latest biomedical advances of functional nanomaterials in medical diagnosis and disease detection, disease treatment, the combination of diagnosis and treatment (theranostics), multi-model imaging and nanozyme are also summarized and discussed. Finally, the bright application prospects of functional nanomaterials in biomedicine are emphasized and the urgent need to achieve significant breakthroughs in the industrial transformation and the clinical translation is proposed. This article is categorized under: Nanotechnology Approaches to Biology > Nanoscale Systems in Biology Diagnostic Tools > Diagnostic Nanodevices Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Nanomedicine for Oncologic Disease.

A Detailed Investigation of the Onion Structure of Exchanged Coupled Magnetic Fe3-δO4@CoFe2O4@Fe3-δO4 Nanoparticles

Nanoparticles that combine several magnetic phases offer wide perspectives for cutting edge applications because of the high modularity of their magnetic properties. Besides the addition of the magnetic characteristics intrinsic to each phase, the interface that results from core-shell and, further, from onion structures leads to synergistic properties such as magnetic exchange coupling. Such a phenomenon is of high interest to overcome the superparamagnetic limit of iron oxide nanoparticles which hampers potential applications such as data storage or sensors. In this manuscript, we report on the design of nanoparticles with an onion-like structure which has been scarcely reported yet. These nanoparticles consist of a Fe_3-δO₄ core covered by a first shell of CoFe₂O₄ and a second shell of Fe_3-δO₄, e.g., a Fe_3-δO₄@CoFe₂O₄@Fe_3-δO₄ onion-like structure. They were synthesized through a multistep seed-mediated growth approach which consists consists in performing three successive thermal decomposition of metal complexes in a high-boiling-point solvent (about 300 °C). Although TEM micrographs clearly show the growth of each shell from the iron oxide core, core sizes and shell thicknesses markedly differ from what is suggested by the size increasing. We investigated very precisely the structure of nanoparticles in performing high resolution (scanning) TEM imaging and geometrical phase analysis (GPA). The chemical composition and spatial distribution of atoms were studied by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) mapping and spectroscopy. The chemical environment and oxidation state of cations were investigated by ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer spectrometry, soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). The combination of these techniques allowed us to estimate the increase of Fe²⁺ content in the iron oxide core of the core@shell structure and the increase of the cobalt ferrite shell thickness in the core@shell@shell one, whereas the iron oxide shell appears to be much thinner than expected. Thus, the modification of the chemical composition as well as the size of the Fe_3-δO₄ core and the thickness of the cobalt ferrite shell have a high impact on the magnetic properties. Furthermore, the growth of the iron oxide shell also markedly modifies the magnetic properties of the core-shell nanoparticles, thus demonstrating the high potential of onion-like nanoparticles to accurately tune the magnetic properties of nanoparticles according to the desired applications.

Unraveling the mechanism of the one-pot synthesis of exchange coupled Co-based nano-heterostructures with a high energy product

The development of reproducible protocols to synthesize hard/soft nano-heterostructures (NHSs) with tailored magnetic properties is a crucial step to define their potential application in a variety of technological areas. Thermal decomposition has proved to be an effective tool to prepare such systems, but it has been scarcely used so far for the synthesis of Co-based metal/ferrite NHSs, despite their intriguing physical properties. We found a new approach to prepare this kind of nanomaterial based on a simple one-pot thermal decomposition reaction of metal-oleate precursors in the high boiling solvent docosane. The obtained NHSs are characterized by the coexistence of Co metal and Co doped magnetite and are highly stable in an air atmosphere, thanks to the passivation of the metal with a very thin oxide layer. The investigation of the influence of the metal precursor composition (a mixed iron-cobalt oleate), of the ligands (oleic acid and sodium oleate) and of the reaction time on the chemical and structural characteristics of the final product, allowed us to rationalize the reaction pathway and to determine the role of each parameter. In particular, the use of sodium oleate is crucial to obtain a metal phase in the NHSs. In such a way, the one-pot approach proposed here allows the fine control of the synthesis, leading to the formation of stable, high performant, metal/ferrite NHSs with tailored magnetic properties. For instance, the room temperature maximum energy product was increased up to 19 kJ m^-3 by tuning the Co content in the metal precursor.

Modeling generation and growth of iron oxide nanoparticles from representative precursors through ReaxFF molecular dynamics

Detailed dynamical characterization of the mechanisms responsible for the formation and growth of iron oxide nanoparticles remains a significant challenge not only for experimental techniques but also for theoretical methodologies due to the nanoparticle size, long simulation times, and complexity of the environments. In this work, we have designed a fast computational protocol based on atomistic reactive molecular dynamics, which is capable of simulating the whole synthetic and proliferation process of the nanoparticles (greater than 10 nm) in a homogeneous medium from organometallic precursors. We have defined appropriate growth accelerating strategies based on the observed reactions, which consisted of the formation of Fe-O-Fe bridges, linking separate precursors, and Fe˙ and FeO˙ radicals. This reduced drastically the computational time allowing the simulation of NPs made of thousands of atoms (full nanometric range). We have identified the most probable reaction environments and summarized them under two distinct conditions: reductive and oxidative. The first one leads to the formation of nanoparticles with FeO stoichiometry typical of wustite, whereas the second one stabilizes stoichiometries between Fe₃O₄ (magnetite), and Fe₂O₃ (maghemite). In the latter case, the obtained NPs adopted, from the very early stages of the growth process, a cubic crystalline structure, typical of the oxidized FeOx bulk phases. The excellent agreement of our results with the experimental data demonstrates that the proposed protocol can provide a powerful predictive tool to describe structural features developed by the metal oxide nanoparticles and establish clear structure-property relationships.

Unravelling the Thermal Decomposition Parameters for The Synthesis of Anisotropic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles

Iron oxide nanoparticles are widely used as a contrast agent in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and may be used as therapeutic agent for magnetic hyperthermia if they display in particular high magnetic anisotropy. Considering the effect of nanoparticles shape on anisotropy, a reproducible shape control of nanoparticles is a current synthesis challenge. By investigating reaction parameters, such as the iron precursor structure, its water content, but also the amount of the surfactant (sodium oleate) reported to control the shape, iron oxide nanoparticles with different shape and composition were obtained, in particular, iron oxide nanoplates. The effect of the surfactant coming from precursor was taking into account by using in house iron stearates bearing either two or three stearate chains and the negative effect of water on shape was confirmed by considering these precursors after their dehydration. Iron stearates with three chains in presence of a ratio sodium oleate/oleic acid 1:1 led mainly to nanocubes presenting a core-shell Fe1-xO@Fe3-xO₄ composition. Nanocubes with straight faces were only obtained with dehydrated precursors. Meanwhile, iron stearates with two chains led preferentially to the formation of nanoplates with a ratio sodium oleate/oleic acid 4:1. The rarely reported flat shape of the plates was confirmed with 3D transmission electronic microscopy (TEM) tomography. The investigation of the synthesis mechanisms confirmed the major role of chelating ligand and of the heating rate to drive the cubic shape of nanoparticles and showed that the nanoplate formation would depend mainly on the nucleation step and possibly on the presence of a given ratio of oleic acid and chelating ligand (oleate and/or stearate).