Iron Carbide@Iron Oxide Core-Shell Nanoparticles Functionalization with L-Arginine Amphiphillic Bioconjugate

Metallic nanoparticles perform as therapeutic agents because of their precise response to optical, electrical, magnetic, physicochemical fields, and other stimulation processes at the nanometric scale. Targeted drug delivery using nanoparticles has been one of the most researched fields in recent years to improve the degree of precision, decrease treatment times, and reduce side effects compared to existing conventional methods. Nowadays, one nanoparticle synthesis and encapsulation process is improving green chemistry with surfactants conducive to increasing the biodegradability and biocompatibility of metal nanoparticles. Amino acid surfactants can provide functional groups with high affinity to the application site in drug delivery applications and reduce toxicity originating from the characteristic aggregation of metal nanoparticles. In that regard, functionalization by amino acids increases the use of metal nanoparticles. Arginine, as a surfactant in the nanometric scale and, at low concentrations, is used in cancer therapy, hormone deliberation, and drug delivery in biological systems. In this work, we evaluate polypeptides potentially used in various applications with metallic nanoparticles, such as separator agents in biological environments. Herein, oleic acid (OA) was bioconjugated with L-Arginine (OAR) to change iron carbide@ iron oxide nanoparticles (ICIONPs) core-shell type from hydrophobic to hydrophilic. The synthesis route is based on bioconjugation techniques, using N'N-Dicyclohexilcarbodimiide by nucleophilic substitution of the carboxyl group performed at low temperatures. This study shows OAR nanoparticles size 55 ± 24 nm of oleic acid.