Synthesis of high magnetization hydrophilic magnetite (Fe₃O ₄) nanoparticles in single reaction - Surfactantless polyol process

High magnetization hydrophilic magnetite nanoparticles have been synthesized in two different batches with mean particle sizes of 32.3 and 9.2 nm by inexpensive and surfactant-free facile one-pot modified polyol method. In the synthesis, polyethylene glycol was used as a solvent media and it has been found to play a key role to act as a reducing agent as well as a stabilizer simultaneously. It was shown that the size of the nanoparticles can be effectively controlled by modifying the reaction parameters such as reaction temperature, time and polyol/metal precursor ratio. X-ray diffraction and energy dispersive spectroscopy studies confirm the formation of a pure magnetite phase without the presence of any other phases. Transmission electron microscopy and the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results reveal that the particle size and surface adsorption properties are very much dependent on reaction parameters. The magnetic properties of the samples measured by physical property measurement system have shown that the as-synthesized magnetite nanoparticles possess a high magnetization of 85.87 emu/g at 300 K and 91.7 emu/g at 5 K with negligible coercivities. The structural and magnetic characterizations of these polyol coated, hydrophilic, monodisperse, superparamagnetic nanoparticles clearly indicate that they are suitable for biomedical applications.