RESUMO
The Gardenia, traditional medicinal plant used from ancient time to increase appetite and other medicinal uses has been employed for the synthesis of superparamagnetic α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles (NPs). The plant extracts unveiled its bifunctional nature through the reducing ferric ions by phenolic groups and capping nature through the -OH bonding over the NPs surface. The prepared NPs exhibits α-Fe2O3 phase among iron oxides and spherical morphology with an average size around 5 nm. The magnetic measurements proved the superparamagnetic behavior of NPs with non-saturating MS value of 8.5 emu/g at room temperature (300 K). Further, the hyperthermia study reveals, the NPs achieved a temperature of 40 °C and 43 °C within 6 min and reaches up to 43 °C and 45 °C within 10 min only for 5 µg/mL and 10 µg/mL concentrations respectively. Based on the heating profile of NPs, the SAR values (167.7 Oe, 300 MHz) calculated and are found to be around 62.75 W/g and 24.38 W/g for 5 µg/mL and 10 µg/mL NPs concentrations respectively. Subsequently, these have been used for toxicity assays, which presented enhanced cytotoxic effects on human mesenchymal cells lines proving them as a potential candidate for the biomedical applications.
