Synthesis, characterization and In-vitro studies of CNT/Gd2O3 hybrid structure

Carbon nanotubes have been explored in various fields of science and technology due to their unique properties. However, their toxic nature put limitations to its consideration for the bio-medical applications. In our work, we report the synthesis of paramagnetic CNT/Gd<inf>2</inf>O<inf>3</inf> hybrid nanostructures through easily scalable electrochemical deposition technique. The nanostructure has shown significant longitudinal relaxivity of 18.93 mM⁻¹s⁻¹ for water protons indicating its possibility to be used as an MRI contrast agent. The in-vitro cytotoxicity test on the normal (HaCaT) and cancerous (HeLa) cells reveal that CNT/Gd<inf>2</inf>O<inf>3</inf> hybrid nanostructure is bio-compatible in comparison to the pure CNTs, which is further supported by our theoretical studies using MD simulations.