Synthesis of completely dispersed water soluble functionalized graphene/γ-Fe2O3 nanocomposite and its application as an MRI contrast agent

Abstract In this work, the synthesis of graphene oxide grafted poly citric acid-γ-Fe 2 O 3 nanocomposite (GO-g-PCA/γ-Fe 2 O 3 ) with a simple method and its application as a useful negative contrast agent in magnetic resonance imaging was studied. GO was prepared by Mildly method and polymerized with citric acid to produce GO-g-PCA. γ-Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles were synthesized by co-precipitation method in the size distribution range of 10–25 nm with saturation magnetization (M s ) 21 emu g −1 . The nanoparticles encapsulated on GO-g-PCA to produce nanocomposite that showed excellent stability, extra dispersibility, and good superparamagnetic properties with M s 14 emu g −1 . This nanocomposite provided significant contrast enhancement effect in T 2 and T 2 ⁎ -weighted images with r 2 and r 2 ⁎ values 125.63 and 280.85 mM −1  s −1 respectively at 3.0 T. The cytotoxicity evaluation showed no cell toxicity in HCT-116 cell lines even at a high concentration up to 141 μg mL −1 after being treated for 24 h by MTT assay test method.