Fe $_{3}$ O $_{4}$ Incorporated AOT-Alginate Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery

Composite nanoparticles of aerosol OT-alginate hydrogel loaded with Fe₃O₄ and rhodamine 6G (R6G) in average diameter between 25 nm and 50 nm were synthesized by emulsification-cross-linking process and characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and SQUID magnetometery measurements. TEM measurements show that the Fe₃O₄ particles are uniformly distributed within AOT-alginate nanoparticles. The Ca²⁺ cross-linked AOT-alginate nanoparticles loaded with Fe₃O₄ and rhodamine showed superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature with saturation magnetization of ~50 emu/g of Fe₃ O₄. Similar behavior was exhibited by Fe²⁺ cross-linked AOT-alginate nanoparticles loaded with Fe₃O₄ and rhodamine except it showed twice the magnetization of Ca²⁺ crosslinked counterpart. A decrease in the amount of rhodamine loading for the composite nanoparticle systems as compared to the bare AOT-alginate nanoparticles was found.