Synthesis and characterization of magnetite nanoparticles via the chemical co-precipitation method

Magnetite nanoparticles were synthesized via the chemical co-precipitation method using ammonium hydroxide as the precipitating agent. The size of the magnetite nanoparticles was carefully controlled by varying the reaction temperature and through the surface modification. Herein, the hexanoic acid and oleic acid were introduced as the coating agents during the initial crystallization phase of the magnetite. Their structure and morphology were characterized by the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), the X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). Moreover, the electrical and magnetic properties were studied by using a conductivity meter and a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), respectively. Both of the bare magnetite and the coated magnetite were of the cubic spinel structure and the spherical-shaped morphology. The reaction temperature and the surface modification critically affected the particle size, the electrical conductivity, and the magnetic properties of these particles. The particle size of the magnetite was increased through the surface modification and reaction temperature. In this study, the particle size of the magnetite nanoparticles was successfully controlled to be in the range of 10–40 nm, suitable for various biomedical applications. The electrical conductivity of the smallest particle size was 1.3 × 10−3 S/cm, within the semi-conductive materials range, which was higher than that of the largest particle by about 5 times. All of the magnetite nanoparticles showed the superparamagnetic behavior with high saturation magnetization. Furthermore, the highest magnetization was 58.72 emu/g obtained from the hexanoic acid coated magnetite nanoparticles.