Keywords: Molybdenum trioxide nanoparticles; efficient cancer therapy; biological activity; FT-IR; TGA; TEM

Abstract

The present study focused on the fabrication of molybdenum trioxide nanoparticles (MoO3) from a molybdenum complex with N-salicylideneaniline [Mo(C13H10NO)3] ligand as the precursor. The ligand was synthesized and characterized by 1H NMR and 13C NMR. The synthesized MoO3 nanoparticles were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, FT-IR, UV-visible spectroscopy, TG-DTA, SEM-EDX and TEM. The results clearly showed the formation of nanoparticles of MoO3. The absorption spectra of MoO3 at 341 nm revealed the formation of MoO3 by calculating the band gap at 2.8 eV. TG–DTA showed MoO3 was stable up to 800 °C. SEM and TEM analyses clearly indicated the formation of MoO3 nanoparticles in the range of 30-47 nm. The NPs were tested for their cytotoxicity influence on MCF7-human breast adenocarcinoma cell lines. The findings suggested MoO3 had the capacity to kill 50% of viable cells after 24 h of incubation at 37 °C. The observations strongly suggest that MoO3 nanoparticles have therapeutic potential against human breast cancer cells based on the dosage of the drug after an incubation period of 24 h.