ZETA POTENTIAL STUDY OF BARIUM HEXAGONAL FERRITES (BaFe₁₂O₁₉) FOR DRUG RELEASE

Abstract

Advances in nanotechnology observe new applications in many areas. Recently a great extent of research has been focused on the study of magnetic nanoparticles due to their potential application in areas such as bioscience and medicine. Magnetic nanoparticles are frequently used in biomedical and biotechnology applications since these particles associated to a given medicine are good candidates for drug release.In this work zeta potential measurements of both hexagonal barium ferrites (magnetic nanoparticles), and an antibiotic known as tetracycline were carried out. The knowledge of the measured values establishes the possibility of bringing the two particles together in order to adsorb the tetracycline on the magnetic nanoparticles, since the surface charge play an essential role in the adsorption of the pharmaceutical drug on nanomaterials (i.e., tetracycline on barium ferrites).Experimental results show the feasibility to adsorb tetracycline nanoparticles on barium hexaferrite solids at pH 7.0, based on the knowledge of the opposite electrical surface charge of the two solid species through the zeta potential measurement.