Design and Synthesis of Nanoparticle Tracers for Magnetic Particle Imaging

Lucy Gloag¹, Richard D. Tilley^1,2,3

¹School of Chemistry, The University of New South Wales; Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

²Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre, The University of New South Wales; Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

³Australian Centre for NanoMedicine, The University of New South Wales; Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is a new technology that has the potential to become the leading diagnostic instrument for biomedical imaging. This technology uses tracers made of magnetic nanoparticles with a biocompatible coating.¹To reach such high signal intensity and spatial resolution, MPI tracers must have high saturation magnetization and also be superparamagnetic.²It is anticipated that advances in the design of nanoparticle tracers will improve MPI signals by over 100 times and obtain resolutions below 100 μm.³In this presentation, I will present precisely controlled nanoparticle tracers made of zero-valent iron, magnetite, maghemite and doped-iron oxide materials. I will show how the structural properties of size, crystallinity, dispersity and surface coating are critical for generating intense and resolved MPI signals. The synthetic principles enable nanoparticle tracers to designed and optimised for specific MPI applications.

Figure: Illustration of a zero-valent iron nanoparticle coated with a strongly binding brush co-polymer (left) and the narrow MPI signal generated (right).¹

[1] L. Gloag, M. Mehdipour, M. Ulanova, et al. “Zero valent iron core–iron oxide shell nanoparticles as small magnetic particle imaging tracers”, Chemical Communications, vol. 56, no. 24, 2020, doi:10.1039/C9CC08972A.

[2] L. Gloag, M. Mehdipour, D. Chen, et al., “Advances in the Application of Magnetic Nanoparticles for Sensing”,Advanced Materials, vol. 31, no. 48, 2019, doi:10.1002/adma.201904385.

[3] S.J. Kemp, R.M. Ferguson, A.P. Khandhar, et al. “Monodisperse magnetite nanoparticles with nearly ideal saturation magnetization”, RSC Advances, vol. 6, no. 81, 2016, doi:10.1039/c6ra12072e.