Facile preparation of self-assembled hydrogel-like GdPO₄· H₂O nanorods

Of the methods employed in the preparation of one-dimensional lanthanide phosphate (LnPO₄) nanorods/nanowires, such as GdPO₄, the hydrothermal method has been mainly used as a synthetic route. In this study, we report a facile low-temperature solution approach to prepare GdPO₄ · H₂O nanorods by simply refluxing GdCl₃ and KH₂PO₄ for only 15 min at 88°C, an approach that can easily be scaled up by increasing the reagent amounts. We observed a highly viscous macroscopic hydrogel-like material when we mixed as-prepared GdPO ₄ ·H₂O nanomaterials with H₂O. Hydrogels are an important class of biomaterials. Their building blocks, normally formed from protein-, peptide-, polymer-, and lipid-based materials, offer three-dimensional scaffolds for drug delivery, tissue engineering, and biosensors. Our preliminary results showed that GdPO₄·H ₂O hydrogels could be used for encapsulation and drug release, and that they were biocompatible, acting as scaffolds to foster cell proliferation. These findings suggested that they might have biomedical uses. Our findings may lead to the creation of other inorganic nanomaterial-based hydrogels apart from the organic and biomolecular protein-, peptide-, polymer-, and lipid-based building blocks.