Synthesis of Au/Bi2S3 nanoflowers for efficient photothermal therapy

Abstract

A therapeutic nanoplatform with effective photothermal cancer treatment attracts enormous attention but still faces great challenges, such as a tedious preparation process, poor biocompatibility and low efficiency. In this study, we prepared Au/Bi₂S₃ nanoflowers (NFs) as high-performance cancer photothermal agents for the first time. This was achieved in a facile and mild way by using bovine serum albumin (BSA) as reducer and stabilizer. In this process, Bi³⁺ and Au³⁺ underwent in situ reduction and growth, and then formed flower-like Au/Bi₂S₃ nanocomposites. The results revealed that the as-prepared Au/Bi₂S₃ NFs with special morphology showed high stability, excellent biocompatibility and good photostability. Apart from these, it was also observed that the Au/Bi₂S₃ NFs can efficiently convert the near-infrared (NIR) light into heat leading to high performance in photothermal conversion efficiency (up to 58.34%), and then suppressed the growth of tumor cells under NIR laser irradiation. This work highlights the potential of Au/Bi₂S₃ NFs as photothermal agents for cancer ablation treatment in the future.