Water-Soluble Lanthanide–Titanium–Oxo Cluster, a Precursor for Biocompatible Nanomaterial

Titanium–oxo clusters (TOCs) are attractive as a rapidly growing class of molecular materials due to their use as molecular models and precursors of nano-titanium-oxide. However, most TOCs can only be dissolved in nonaqueous solvents, which largely limits their potential applications in biological or environmental situations. Very few water-soluble TOCs were reported, which can be used directly in aqueous biomedical systems. However, until now, no research studies of such TOCs involved in biomedical fields have been documented. We report here a series of lanthanide–titanium–oxo clusters (LnTOCs) formulated as {H₂@[Ln₂Ti₈(μ₃-O)₈(μ₂-O)₄­(Ac)₁₆]}₃·24CH₃CN·23H₂O (Ln = Eu­(III) 1, Tb­(III) 2, and Yb­(III) 3). The compounds are easily soluble in water and form a stable solution of the cluster aggregates (LnTOC-a). Therefore, nano-biocompatible TiO materals can be prepared from these LnTOCs just by dissolving them in water. The nanoscale aggregates in water solutions were characterized by SEI-MS, ¹H NMR, XPS, IR, and EDS mapping. Using the EuTOC-a solution, excellent fluorescence sensor properties for biomolecule ascorbic acid were found. Furthermore, biocompatibility and fluorescent labeling properties of the EuTOC-a for HeLa cells were evaluated. The results indicated that water-soluble LnTOCs can be used to prepare biocompatible fluorescent Ln–Ti–O nanomaterials.