Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles for Magnetic Particle Imaging

In the last few years, nanomaterials have emerged with interesting properties for new applications in nearly all areas of life. Particularly, SPIONs, i.e. nanosized superparamagnetic particles based on iron oxide, became more and more interesting in medicine. For instance, SPIONs have successfully been used in cancer therapy and for contrast enhancement in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Recently, SPIONs have shown viability as tracer in magnetic particle imaging (MPI), a method for visualization of the spatial distribution of iron oxide nanoparticles. In this paper, a simple synthesis strategy for SPIONs is presented. It has been shown that the image quality of MPI is highly dependent on the particle core diameter. Therefore, the particles must be optimized to improve imaging quality. It is explained how the raw synthesized particles are subjected to a separation and purification chain. Finally, the results of the separation efforts are validated by spectral analysis.