Teixeira, S. S., M. P. F. Graça, J. Lucas, M. A. Valente, P. I. P. Soares, M. C. Lança, T. Vieira, J. C. Silva, J. P. Borges, L. - I. Jinga, G. Socol, C. Mello Salgueiro, J. Nunes, and L. C. Costa,
"Nanostructured LiFe5O8 by a Biogenic Method for Applications from Electronics to Medicine",
Nanomaterials, vol. 11, no. 1: MDPI AG, pp. 193, jan, 2021.
AbstractThe physical properties of the cubic and ferrimagnetic spinel ferrite LiFe5O8 has made it an attractive material for electronic and medical applications. In this work, LiFe5O8 nanosized crystallites were synthesized by a novel and eco-friendly sol-gel process, by using powder coconut water as a mediated reaction medium. The dried powders were heat-treated (HT) at temperatures between 400 and 1000 °C, and their structure, morphology, electrical and magnetic characteristics, cytotoxicity, and magnetic hyperthermia assays were performed. The heat treatment of the LiFe5O8 powder tunes the crystallite sizes between 50 nm and 200 nm. When increasing the temperature of the HT, secondary phases start to form. The dielectric analysis revealed, at 300 K and 10 kHz, an increase of $ε$′ (≈10 up to ≈14) with a tan$δ$ almost constant (≈0.3) with the increase of the HT temperature. The cytotoxicity results reveal, for concentrations below 2.5 mg/mL, that all samples have a non-cytotoxicity property. The sample heat-treated at 1000 °C, which revealed hysteresis and magnetic saturation of 73 emu g−1 at 300 K, showed a heating profile adequate for magnetic hyperthermia applications, showing the potential for biomedical applications.
Tavares, C., T. Vieira, J. C. Silva, J. P. M. R. Borges, and C. M. Lança,
"Bioactive Hydroxyapatite Aerogels with Piezoelectric Particles",
Biomimetics 2024, Vol. 9, Page 143, vol. 9, no. 3: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, pp. 143, feb, 2024.
AbstractOpen-cell foams based on hydroxyapatite (HAp) can mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM) to better replace damaged hard tissues and assist in their regeneration processes. Aerogels of HAp nanowires (NW) with barium titanate (BT) particles were produced and characterized regarding their physical and chemical properties, bioactivity, and in vitro cytotoxicity. Considering the role of piezoelectricity (mainly due to collagen) and surface charges in bone remodeling, all BT particles, of size 280 nm and 2 and 3 µm, contained BaTiO3 in their piezoelectric tetragonal phase. The synthesized nanowires were verified to be AB-type carbonated hydroxyapatite. The aerogels showed high porosity and relatively homogeneous distribution of the BT particles. Barium titanate proved to be non-cytotoxic while all the aerogels produced were cytotoxic for an extract concentration of 1 mg/mL but became non-cytotoxic at concentrations of 0.5 mg/mL and below. It is possible that these results were affected by the higher surface area and quicker dissolution rate of the aerogels. In the bioactivity assays, SEM/EDS, it was not easy to differentiate between the apatite deposition and the surface of the HAp wires. However, a quantitative EDS analysis shows a possible CaP deposition/dissolution cycle taking place.