Preparation of Poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolic acid)-Encapsulated QD Magnetic Nanoparticles by Electrohydrodynamic Co-Jetting

Abstract

Recently, several studies have been performed on the preparation of anisotropically compartmentalized particles for bio-tag and drug delivery applications. In fact, electrohydrodynamic (EHD) co-jetting was developed to fabricate nano- and micron-sized anisotropic polymer particles of various shapes. In this study, we used the EHD co-jetting process to prepare composites consisting of two compartments, each loaded with magnetic iron oxide particles and CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs); these 4-6 nm-diameter iron oxide particles were prepared by the co-precipitation method. The magnetic particles and CdSe/ZnSQDs, of three different colors were loaded into poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) by EHD co-jetting. The QD- and iron oxide-containing PLGA particles, with a broad size distribution of diameters ranging from 125.9 nm to 30 mu m, exhibited both fluorescent and magnetic properties.