Structural, morphological, and thermal properties of Fe3−xGdxO4−PEG/PVP/PVA based ferrogel as hyperthermia therapy agent.

Hyperthermia therapy is one of the more effective in vivo cancer treatment methods to minimize regular tissue damage than surgery and chemotherapy. It can be carried out using natural materials. One of the potential raw material is Fe3O4 nanomagnetic particle. In this study, Fe3O4 nanomagnetic particle-based ferrogel was developed using surface modification strategy, rare-earth elements doping addition, and flexible matrix utilization to identify its application potential as a hyperthermia therapy agent. The ferrogel was fabricated through the Freezing-Thawing method for three cycles using PVP/PVA based hydrogel matrix and filler from Fe3O4 nanoparticle with Gd doping that has been synthesized using the coprecipitation method. The results of XRD characterization indicate a diffraction peak shift toward the smaller diffraction angle than Fe3-xGdxO4-PEG nanoparticle, with the crystalline size of around 10.7-12.04 nm. Meanwhile, FTIR characterization results confirm that the sample has Gd-O-Fe functional groups at about 628.79-698.23 cm−1 wavenumber. At the same time, the results of SEM characterization reveal that the samples of Fe3O4−PEG, Fe2.99Gd0.01O4-PEG, and Fe2.95Gd0.05O4−PEG have the spherical morphological form with an average particle size of 53.8, 82.5, and 110 nm, respectively. The Magneto-Thermal characterization results on the Fe2.95Gd0.05O4-PEG/PVP/PVA sample demonstrate an increase of thermal properties and SAR value, following the escalation of filler concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]