Magnetic heating of water dispersible and size-controlled superparamagnetic cobalt iron oxide nanoparticles

Magnetic nanoparticles have been of great interest for various biomedical applications due to their controllability in the distance. Monodisperse superparamagnetic CoFe2O4 (CFO) nanoparticles were synthesized by solvothermal method with oleic acid. The oleic acid ligands are exchanged with citric acid to obtain water-dispersible citric acid-coated CA (CFO–CA) nanoparticles. The M–H curve recorded at room temperature shows the superparamagnetic nature of CFO nanoparticles for both oleic- and citric-coated samples. The magnetic heating performance of CFO–CA shows an exciting dependence on the particle size and surface functionality. The hyperthermia efficiency of CFO–CA nanoparticles increases with increasing magnetic field strength and nanoparticle concentration. A specific absorption ratio value of 152.7 W/g obtained in this study is comparable to other investigations, demonstrating a great potential of CFO–CA nanoparticles for hyperthermia-based treatments. This controlled synthesis process can be applied to various functional biomedical nanoparticles to prepare nanoparticles with designed surface moieties for further potential applications.