Gelatin-mediated coprecipitation synthesis of copper sulfide nanoparticles for photothermal ablation of cancer cells

Abstract

CuS nanomaterials were prepared through a gelatin-mediated co-precipitation method. The effects of gelatin amount, reaction temperature and time on the morphology, phase and photo absorption were investigated. The results show that the optimized gelatin amount is 0.25~0.5 g, and the increased temperature or time can enhance the size and crystalline of CuS nanomaterials. CuS nanoparticles prepared with 0.5 g gelatin at 80 ℃ for 6 h have the strongest near-infrared (NIR) photoabsorption. The 0.1 mL aqueous dispersion containing 0.4 mg/mL CuS-gelatin which is continuously irradiated by the 1064 nm laser with a power density of 1.0 W/cm2, and the temperature rising reaches a maximum value of 30.8 ℃ at 300 s, yielding a photothermal conversion efficiency of 35.7%. In addition, compared with bare CuS nanoparticles, CuS-gelatin exhibits the lower cytotoxicity. Importantly, cancer cells in vitro can be efficiently ablated by the photothermal effect of CuS-gelatin with the irradiation of 1064 nm laser for 10 min.

Keywords

• gelatin
• copper sulfide
• nanomaterial
• photothermal conversion