Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University -Faculty of Science - Department of Biotechnology

This study present a simple reproducible and scalable approach to fabricate magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MFe3O₄ NPs) and magnetic chitosan nanoparticles (MFe₃O₄/CS NPs) with both pH and magnetic-responsive properties that can provide efficient drug loading, controllable drug release and imaging capability. The proposed approach is based on one-step process involving a sonochemical reverse co-precipitation of Fe(III)/Fe(II) mixture under ambient atmosphere with no protecting N2 gas. The methods yielded a small sized MFe₃O₄NPs and MFe₃O₄/CS NPs (~ 8-10 nm) with narrow distribution. Both the XRD and HRTEM analyses proved that the synthesized MFe₃O₄ NPs was magnetite and confirming that the in situ synthesis of MFe₃O₄/CS NPs did not cause any phase changes in the iron oxide or affect the crystalline structure of MFe₃O₄. FTIR studies reveal the successful coating of MFe₃O₄ nanoparticles by chitosan which upon freeze dried the MFe₃O₄/CS gained a porous structure that probably would absorb more drug and increase the absorption capacities of nanocarriers. The hysteresis loop magnetization curve for the nanoparticles were measured showing that the saturation magnetization values for the MFe₃O₄ NPs is 68 emu/g and for MFe₃O₄/CS is 39 emu/g with negligible remainance and coercivity, indicating that both nanoparticles present superparamagnetic properties

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