Effect of ferrofluid concentration on electrical and magnetic properties of the Fe3O4/PANI nanocomposites

Magnetic nanocomposites can be controlled and tailored to provide the desired mechanical, physical, chemical, and biomedical properties depending on the final applications. The coating of ferrite nanoparticles with polymers affords the possibility of minimizing agglomeration in large-scale commercial synthesis of nanocomposite materials. The process of coating not only provides effective encapsulation of individual nanoparticles, but also controls the growth in size, thus, yielding a better overall size distribution. In this paper, in-situ polymerization of aniline was carried out in different concentration of the ferrofluid with the aim to obtain agglomerate free nanocomposites. The role of the ferrite concentration was investigated by the spectral, morphological, conductivity, and magnetic properties of Fe3O4/polyaniline (PANI) nanocomposites. XRD revealed the presence of spinel phase of Fe3O4 and the particle size was calculated to be 14.3 nm. Spectral analysis confirmed the formation of PANI encapsulated Fe3O4 nanocomposite. Conductivity of the nanocomposites was found to be in the range of 0.001–0.003 S/cm. Higher saturation magnetization of 3.2 emu/g was observed at 300 K, revealing a super paramagnetic behavior of this nanocomposite.