Synthesis and magnetic heating characteristics of thermoresponsive poly (N-isopropylacrylamide-co-acrylic acid)/nano Fe3O4 nanparticles

In this work the synthesis of thermo-sensitive polymer coated magnetic nanoparticles and their inductive heating have been studied. Poly (N-isopropylacrylamide-co-acrylic acid) (NA) polymers were first synthesized by emulsion polymerization of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (NIP) in water and followed by encapsulating magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). As increasing the concentration of acrylic acid (AA), the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) increased, so that with 150% of AA (molar ratio) the LCST reached 42 °C, which is close to the temperature of hyperthermia treatment. Magnetization and ac susceptibility measurements were conducted to depict some characteristics of the NIP-MNPs and NA-MNPs that are related with the loss power. Attempts to analyze the rate of magnetic inductive heating were performed to show the Brownian relaxation origin of additional heat source created by the magnetite nanoparticles capped with thermosensitive polymers. Our results suggest that these thermo-sensitive polymer-coated magnetic nanoparticles show a potential for hyperthermia and drug delivery application.