Anticancer potential of Barium titanate nanoparticles: Structural, optical and biomedical perspectives

Abstract

The scope of biomedical applications of Barium Titanate (BaTiO₃) nanoparticles is enormous and ascribable to its extraordinary structural and optical properties. The current work reports the broad structural characterization and evaluation of interactions of sol-gel synthesized BaTiO₃ nanoparticles with biological systems. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed the formation of single-phase tetragonal structures having an average crystallite size of 20 nm with a lattice strain of 3.0 × 10⁻³. The scanning electron microscopy application provided a uniform quasi-spherical morphology, and the energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy confirmed the stoichiometric ratio. The UV–Visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy gave a direct measurement of the bandgap to be 3.33eV, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy confirmed the characteristic vibrations of Ti–O at 491.85 cm⁻¹. The most important biological assessment with Alamar Blue assay exhibited high biocompatibility with L929 fibroblast cells, maintaining high cell viability at higher concentrations. These also displayed selective cytotoxicity toward MCF-7 breast cancer cells, which further suggests their potential use in therapeutic applications. Selective behavior combined with well-defined structural and optical properties provides these BaTiO₃ nanoparticles a high potential for targeted cancer therapy. The study significantly contributes to the development of biocompatible ceramic nanoparticles as novel biomedical applications, especially in cancer therapy.