Direct liquid phase deposition fabrication of waxberry-like magnetic Fe3O4@TiO2 core-shell microspheres

• Waxberry-like core-shell Fe3O4@TiO2 microspheres were fabricated by facile LPD route.
• They have considerable saturation magnetization and small coercivity.
• They can be used as recyclable photocatalyst for removal of dyestuff in aqueous solution.
• The growth mechanism of the core-shell structure was proposed.

Magnetic Fe3O4@TiO2 core-shell microspheres are ideally applied in several specific fields due to their unique properties. A facile liquid phase deposition route for the fabrication of Fe3O4@TiO2 core-shell microspheres was developed. The core-shell structure was obtained by direct deposition of TiO2 on the surface of Fe3O4 microspheres. The prepared products were characterized by using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The waxberry-like microspheres were nearly spherical with diameters of about 500 nm and average shell thickness of 80 nm. The shell layer was composed of smaller primary TiO2 nanoparticles with sizes from 10 to 20 nm. A possible growth mechanism of the core-shell structure was proposed. The photo-catalytic decomposition of methylene blue and the recycling of prepared core-shell microspheres were also investigated.

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