Synthesis, characterization, and 5-fluorouracil release behavior of superparamagnetic ?-Fe2O3/ZnO hetero-nanostructures for biomedical applications

In this study, superparamagnetic maghemite (gamma-Fe2O3) nanosystems in the form of nanoparticles were fabricated through the co-precipitation method at different processing conditions. Additionally, novel gamma-Fe2O3/ZnO het-erostructures were fabricated using zinc acetate as the zinc source and polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), and eth-ylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) as the capping agents. The results revealed that the size of the crystallites of the prepared maghemite nanopowders was between 6 nm and 7.8 nm depending on the synthesis temperature. The saturation magnetization value of maghemite nanopowders synthesized at 90 degrees C was measured to be 51.58 emu/g without hysteresis with negligible coercivity. FTIR analysis results proved the presence of ZnO in the maghemite core-based nanosystem. The formation of a ZnO coating using zinc acetate in the presence of PVP and EDTA as a capping agent caused a decrease in magnetization value to 12 emu/g. A ZnO coating provided better dispersion of maghemite nanoparticles and it also affected the drug (5-FU) delivery behavior. ZnO-coated nanoparticles showed prolonged and sustained drug release additionally, they continue to release the drug after 410 h. The 5-FU release kinetics of the prepared heterogeneous nanostructures fitted well with the Korsmeyer-Peppas model.