Preparation Of Hierarchically Nanostructured Fe₃O₄/C Composite And Its Application As A Potential Magnetic Targeting Drug Nanocarrier

Cancer is one of the most important health problems.Anti-cancer drugs will inevitably produce certain adverse effects to normal tissues when inhibiting malignant tumor cells.In order to achieve precise treatment of malignant tumors,the goal at this stage is targeted delivery of anti-cancer drugs.This is not difficult to achieve with the aid of magnetic targeted drug carriers.Nanostructured Fe₃O₄/C composites are very attractive for high-performance magnetic targeted drug carriers.Herein,Fe₃O₄/C composite nanospheres with good dispersity are prepared by a simple one-step hydrothermal synthesis and subsequent heat treatment in Ar.The composite nanospheres consist of clustered primary nanoparticles,and exhibit a hierarchical architecture with a high specific surface area of 119.3 m2 g^-1.The Fe₃O₄/C composite nanospheres show a high saturation magnetization value of 101 emu g^-1 and good biocompatibility.In particular,the composite nanospheres deliver a large loading content（85.8%）of epirubicin hydrochloride（EPI）,resulting from their unique composition and microstructure.More importantly,the release of EPI from the EPI-loaded magnetic carrier（Fe3O4/C-EPI）may be enhanced by both a slightly acidic environment and a rotating magnetic field induced by a simple motor-driven magnet system.The above favorable properties make the hierarchical Fe₃O₄/C composite sample be a promising candidate for magnetic targeting nanocarriers of EPI.