Green synthesis and characterization of superparamagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles

In this paper, we have first demonstrated a facile and green synthetic approach for preparing superparamagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles using α-d-glucose as the reducing agent and gluconic acid (the oxidative product of glucose) as stabilizer and dispersant. The X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectrometry (XPS), and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) results showed that the inverse spinel structure pure phase polycrystalline Fe3O4 was obtained. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results exhibited that Fe3O4 nanoparticles were roughly spherical shape and its average size was about 12.5 nm. The high-resolution TEM (HRTEM) result proved that the nanoparticles were structurally uniform with a lattice fringe spacing about 0.25 nm, which corresponded well with the values of 0.253 nm of the (3 1 1) lattice plane of the inverse spinel Fe3O4 obtained from the JCPDS database. The superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) results revealed that the blocking temperature (Tb) was 190 K, and that the magnetic hysteresis loop at 300 K showed a saturation magnetization of 60.5 emu/g, and the absence of coercivity and remanence indicated that the as-synthesized Fe3O4 nanoparticles had superparamagnetic properties. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) spectrum displayed that the characteristic band of Fe–O at 569 cm−1 was indicative of Fe3O4. This method might provide a new, mild, green, and economical concept for the synthesis of other nanomaterials.