Maria F.

Casula, Anna Corrias, Paolo Arosio, Alessandro Lascialfari, Tapas Sen,

Patrizia Floris, Ian J. Bruce,
Design of water-based ferrofluids as contrast agents for magnetic resonance
imaging,
Journal of Colloid and Interface Science,
Volume 357, Issue 1,
2011,
Pages 50-55,
ISSN 0021-9797,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2011.01.088.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021979711001196)
Abstract: We report the synthesis, characterization and relaxometric study of
ferrofluids based on iron oxide, with potential for use as magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) contrast agents (CAs). The effect of different cost-effective, water-
based surface modification approaches which can be easily scaled-up for the large
scale synthesis of the ferrofluids has been investigated. Surface modification was
achieved by silanization, and/or coating with non-toxic commercial dispersants (a
lauric polysorbate and a block copolymer with pigment affinic groups, namely Tween
20 and Disperbyk 190) which were added after or during iron oxide nanoparticle
synthesis. It was observed that all the materials synthesized functioned as
negative contrast agents at physiological temperature and at frequencies covered by
clinical imagers. The relaxometric properties of the magnetic nanoparticles were
significantly improved after surface coating with stabilizers compared to the
original iron oxide nanoparticles, with particular reference to the silica-coated
magnetic nanoparticles. The results indicate that the optimization of the
preparation of colloidal magnetic ferrofluids by surface modification is effective
in the design of novel contrast agents for MRI by enabling better or more effective
interaction between the coated iron oxide nanoparticles and protons present in
their aqueous environment.
Keywords: Nanoparticles; Ferrofluids; Surface modification; Relaxometry