Synthesis and Fabrication of Fe3O4/SiO2/Agarose/Fe3+ Magnetic Nanoparticle and its Application in Drug Delivery: Metformin Approach

In this study Fe3O4/SiO2/Agarose/Fe3+ magnetic nanoparticle was synthesized based on a simple co-precipitation technique and applied for the drug delivery approach. The modified magnetic nanoparticles were characterized with some techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), dynamic light scattering (DLS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The magnetic nanoparticles size was less than 17nm and applied as carrier for metformin. In the achieved optimum conditions at pH = 9, time = 5 min, temperature = 20C and 5ml adsorbent, a high loading capacity of (41.4mg g-1) was obtained for a 1000mg L-1 solution of metformin. The short adsorption time indicates the rapid uptake of the drug onto the nanoparticle carrier. Up to 52% of the drug was loaded on the carrier under the optimal conditions. The method has relative standard deviation (RSD) less than 11.8% (n=10). The proposed method has been successfully applied as a carrier of Metformin.