Use of triethylene glycol monobutyl ether in synthesis of iron oxide nanoparticles

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by thermal decomposition of iron-oleate complex using triethylene glycol monobutyl ether (TREGBE) as solvent for the first time for more mass of the nanoparticles. The effect of TREGBE on the properties of the nanoparticles was compared with that of 1-hexadecene. The impact of oleic acid concentration on the properties of the nanoparticles was also studied. On the use of TREGBE as compared with 1-hexadecene, the average crystal size reduced from 9.1±2.1 to 8.2±0.7 nm whereas the saturation magnetization (Ms) increased from 53.6 to 58.0 emu/g. Moreover, more products can be synthesized using TREGBE. Besides, the interactions between particle surfaces and TREGBE are weaker than that of 1-hexadecene according to gravimetric analysis results. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that crystallinity and particle size scaled up with increasing oleic acid amount in TREGBE. The electron microscopy showed that dot-shaped particles turned into irregular particles with increasing amount of oleic acid molecules using TREGBE. The results disclosed that TREGBE is quite a suitable solvent to synthesize the superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles with the desired size and Ms for more mass production at low temperature.