Magnetite Nanoparticles: A Potent Magnetic Perspective for Environmental and Biomedical Applications

Engineered magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) have emerged as potent candidates for diverse applications in environmental pollution remediation and biomedical fields, owing to their eminent magnetic, optical, chemical, and biological characteristics. This narrative contribution provides state-of-the-art overview of MNPs (for about 5 years) in the field of environmental pollution remediation and biomedical applications. The first part reviews the application of MNPs in different environmental fields such as carbon dioxide capture, removal of dyes, pesticides, organic pollutants, inorganic pollutants, pharmaceutical and personal care products, owing to their good sorption nature, catalytic efficiency, magnetic nature, stability, reusability, etc. The second part of the review discusses biomedical applications of MNPs such as delivery agents, hyperthermia treatment, imaging, photothermal therapy and antibacterial/antifungal activity, owing to their non-toxicity, targeting ability, magnetic behaviour, hysteresis nature, strong absorption in near-infrared window, etc. Additionally, different synthetic protocols employed for the production of MNPs have been comprehensively overviewed. Finally, present challenges and future perspective of MNPs in environmental and biomedical applications have been addressed.