Gabriele Sponchia

Biocompatible tailored zirconia mesoporous nanoparticles with high surface area for theranostic applications

Nanocarriers as theranostic agents are under the spotlight in modern nanomedicine, and mesoporous nanomaterials represent a class of devices of major interest. Zirconia is biocompatible, inert with good mechanical and thermal properties for in vivo biomedical applications. Although a few examples of zirconia nanoparticles have been described, a major limitation was the low surface area, which is fundamental for payload transport. Here, a simple and highly efficient method is described for the synthesis of spherical mesoporous zirconia nanoparticles (MZNs) with a high surface area through a neutral surfactant-assisted sol-gel method. The combination of alkali halides and vacuum extraction allowed stabilization of the shape and size of MZNs and to avoid porous network failure, respectively. In comparison to published synthesis procedures, a high surface area has been obtained. Biological experiments demonstrated that MZNs were biocompatible, cell permeable and degradable providing a proof of concept for theranostic applications. A comparison with the properties of mesoporous silica nanoparticles has also been performed.

Determining europium compositional fluctuations in partially stabilized zirconia nanopowders: a non‐line‐broadening‐based method

A method is reported for assessing the compositional fluctuations in a ceramic sample, based only on the determination of the crystalline lattice parameters. Pure tetragonal phase partially stabilized zirconia powders are synthesized through the co-precipitation method by incorporating 4% Eu(3+). The powder is subjected to compression cycles to promote the tetragonal-to-monoclinic transformation. The Rietveld analysis of the X-ray powder diffraction patterns, recorded after each compression cycle, gives information about the lattice parameters and monoclinic phase content. The determination of europium content in the residual tetragonal phase is accomplished considering the unit cell volume of t-ZrO2 using Vegards law. Using this information the compositional fluctuations over the sample were determined by considering two possible distributions of lanthanide ion content in the powders: a Gaussian and a Log-normal one. It was found that the Gaussian distribution better fits the experimental data. It was eventually demonstrated that these results are physically meaningful.