Magnetic graphene oxide as MRI contrast agent

What is it about?

The engineering of materials with controlled magnetic properties by means other than a magnetic field is of great interest in nanotechnology. In this study, we report engineered magnetic graphene oxide (MGO) in the nanocomposite form of iron oxide nanoparticles (IO)-graphene oxide (GO) with tunable core magnetism and magnetic resonance transverse relaxivity (r2). These tunable properties are obtained by varying the IO content on GO. The MGO series exhibits r2 values analogous to those observed in conventional single core and cluster forms of IO in different size regimes—motional averaging regime (MAR), static dephasing regime (SDR), and echo-limiting regime (ELR) or slow motion regime (SMR). The maximum r2 of 162 ± 5.703 mM−1s−1 is attained for MGO with 28 weight percent (wt%) content of IO on GO and hydrodynamic diameter of 414 nm, which is associated with the SDR.

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Why is it important?

This research shows how to achieve the optimization of transverse relaxivity of magnetic graphene oxide and paves the way for the MRI applications of graphene-based nanocomposite magnetic materials.

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