Preparation of Dye Molecule‐Intercalated MoO<sub>3</sub> Organic/Inorganic Superlattice Nanoparticles for Fluorescence Imaging‐Guided Catalytic Therapy
Tingting Hu, Qian Liu, Zhan Zhou, Wei Zhao, Haoxin Huang, Fanqi Meng, Wanqiang Liu, Qinghua Zhang, Lin Gu, Ruizheng Liang, Chaoliang Tan
Abstract
Abstract Intercalation of organic molecules into the van der Waals gaps of layered materials allows for the preparation of organic/inorganic superlattices for varying promising applications. Herein, the preparation of a series of dye molecule/MoO 3 organic/inorganic superlattice nanoparticles by aqueous intercalation of several dye molecules into layered MoO 3 for fluorescence imaging‐guided catalytic therapy is reported. The long MoO 3 nanobelts are treated by ball milling and subsequent aqueous intercalation followed by a cation ion exchange to obtain the dye molecule‐intercalated MoO 3 organic/inorganic superlattices. Importantly, because of the activation induced by organic intercalation, the Nile blue (NB)‐intercalated MoO 3‐ x (NB‐MoO 3‐ x ) nanoparticles show excellent catalytic activity for the generation of reactive oxygen species, that is, hydroxyl radical (·OH) and superoxide anion (·O 2 − ), through catalyzing H 2 O 2 and O 2 , respectively. Moreover, the intense fluorescence of the intercalated NB molecules endows NB‐MoO 3‐ x with the in vivo fluorescence imaging capability. Thus, the polyvinylpyrrolidone‐modified NB‐MoO 3‐ x nanoparticles can be used for tumor‐specific catalytic therapy to realize efficient cancer cell elimination in vitro and fluorescence imaging‐guided tumor ablation in vivo.