Rapid determination of iron oxide content in magnetically modified particulate materials

•Large amounts of magnetically modified materials were prepared.•Simple procedure to determine iron oxide content was developed.•Measurements were performed using commercially available magnetic permeability meter.•Up to 20% of magnetic iron oxides attached to the modified material could be measured.•Highly reproducible results were obtained.

Magnetically responsive composite materials have been used in interesting applications in various areas of bioscience, biotechnology, and environmental technology. In this work, a simple method to determine the amount of magnetic iron oxide nano- and microparticles attached to magnetically-modified particulate diamagnetic materials has been developed using a commercially available magnetic permeability meter. The procedure is fast and enables dry particulate magnetically modified materials to be analysed without any modification or pretreatment. We show that the magnetic permeability can be measured for materials containing up to 20% magnetic iron oxide. The magnetic permeability measurements are highly reproducible.

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