Fabrication of gadolinium hydroxide nanoparticles using ion-exchange resin and their MRI property

• We fabricated gadolinium hydroxide nanoparticles by adding basic anion exchange resin to a Gd(NO3)3 aqueous solution.
• The nanoparticles have a needle structure.
• The sizes of the particles are 175.0–222.1 nm (longitudinal) and 33.9–52.3 nm (lateral).
• The relaxivity value for T1-weighted imaging was 0.79 mM−1 s−1.

This paper describes a method to fabricate gadolinium hydroxide (Gd(OH)3) nanoparticles. An opaque solution was prepared by adding basic anion exchange resin (BAER) to a Gd(NO3)3 aqueous solution at room temperature and aging the solution for 12–24 h; the solution became basic because of the exchange of H2O with OH−. The particles in the opaque solution have a needle structure, and their crystal structure was hexagonal Gd(OH)3. Their longitudinal and lateral average particle sizes tend to increase in the ranges of 175.0–222.1 and 33.9–52.3 nm when the aging time increases from 12 to 24 h, respectively. The relaxivity value for T1-weighted imaging was 0.79 mM−1 s−1 for the solution that was prepared at the aging time of 18 h, which was ca. 20% of that for a commercial Gd complex contrast agent.

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