Suitability of commercial colloids for magnetic hyperthermia

Commercial nanoparticles supplied by Chemicell, Micromod and Bayer-Schering were characterised with regard to their nanocrystalline diameter, hydrodynamic diameter, total iron content and relative ferrous iron content. Additionally, calorimetric measurements were taken using a 900 kHz AC magnetic field of amplitude 5.66 kA/m. It was found that those samples containing relatively high (>18%) ferrous content generated a substantially smaller (12% on average) intrinsic loss power (ILP) than those samples with a lower ferrous content. Two nominally identical Chemicell samples that differed only in their production date showed significantly different ILPs, attributed to a variation in batch-to-batch crystallite sizes. The highest ILP values in the cohort, ca. 3.1 nHm2/kg, were achieved for particles with hydrodynamic diameters of ca. 70 nm and nanocrystalline diameters of ca. 12 nm. These compare favourably with most samples prepared in academic laboratories, although they are not as high as the ca. 23.4 nHm2/kg reported for naturally occurring bacterial magnetosomes.