Abstract
Gadolinium vanadate (GdVO4) core and core + 2 shell nanocrystals (NCs) were evaluated for in vitro retention of 225Ac, 227Th, and their first decay daughters, 221Fr and 223Ra, respectively. GdVO4 NCs with a tetragonal crystal system (zircon-type) and spherical morphology were obtained by precipitation of GdCl3 and Na3VO4 using sodium citrate as a complexing agent. The growth of two nonradioactive GdVO4 shells on both Gd(225Ac)VO4 and Gd(227Th)VO4 core NCs was demonstrated by an increase of 0.7 nm and 2 nm in the crystallite size, respectively. The maximum leakage of 225Ac was 15% and 2.4% from core and core + 2 shells, whereas the leakage of 227Th was 3% and 1.5%, respectively. The presence of two nonradioactive GdVO4 shells increased the retention of 221Fr and 223Ra by 20% and 15% with respect to core NCs. Furthermore, a longitudinal proton relaxivity, r1 = 0.9289 s-1 mM-1, confirmed their potential application as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging. In summary, GdVO4 NCs show promising capabilities as radionuclide carriers with partial retention of decay daughters and as contrast agents for theranostic applications.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 214901 |
| Journal | Journal of Applied Physics |
| Volume | 125 |
| Issue number | 21 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 7 2019 |
Funding
This research was supported by (i) Virginia Commonwealth University with the support of the Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Department and the NRC-HQ-84-14-FOA-002, Faculty Development Program in Radiation Detection and Health Physics at Virginia Commonwealth University, (ii) the U.S. Department of Energy Isotope Program within the Office of Nuclear Physics, and (iii) an appointment to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Nuclear Engineering Science Laboratory Synthesis program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. The authors would like to acknowledge the staff of the Nuclear and Radiochemistry Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the staff at the Nanomaterials Core Characterization Facility from the College of Engineering, and the Instrumentation Laboratory from the Department of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University. The authors are thankful to Dr. Qiu Zhang and Dr. David Cullen from Oak Ridge National Laboratory for their assistance. There are no conflicts to declare. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The U.S. government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http:// energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Department | NRC-HQ-84-14-FOA-002 |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Nuclear Physics | |
| Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education | |
| Virginia Commonwealth University |