Synthesis of Magnetic Nanoparticles of Fe3O4 and CoFe2O4

Bull. Korean Chem. Soc. 2006, Vol. 27, No. 2

237

Synthesis of Magnetic Nanoparticles of Fe3O4 and CoFe2O4 and

Their Surface Modification by Surfactant Adsorption
Shi-Yong Zhao, Don Keun Lee, Chang Woo Kim, Hyun Gil Cha, Young Hwan Kim, and Young Soo Kang*
Department of Chemistry, Pukyong National University, Busan 608-737, Korea. *E-mail: [email protected]
Received July 28, 2005

Fe O and CoFe O magnetic nanoparticles have been synthesized successfully in aqueous solution and coated
with oleic acid. The solid and organic solution of the synthesized nanoparticles was obtained. Self-assembled
monolayer films were formed using organic solution of these nanoparticles. The crystal sizes determined by
Debye-Scherre equation with XRD data were found close to the particle sizes calculated from TEM images,
and this indicates that the synthesized particles are nanocrystalline. Especially, EDS, ED, FT-IR, TGA/DTA
and DSC were used to characterize the nanoparticles and the oleic acid adsorption, and it was found that oleic
acid molecule on the Fe O nanoparticle is a bilayer adsorption, while that on CoFe O nanoparticle is single
layer adsorption. The superparamagnetic behavior of the nanoparticles was documented by the hysteresis loop
measured at 300 K.
Key Words : Magnetic nanoparticles, Surfactant adsorption, Fe O , CoFe O
3

Introduction
As holding many novel physical and chemical properties
than other nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles have been
paid much attention. One of the scientific interests is the
magnetic properties of single-domain magnetic nanoparticle
assemblies, and the technological interest is that the
magnetic nanoparticles would find wide applications.
There exist several problems about the investigation of
magnetic nanoparticles, and these exist in other nanoparticles as well. The first is how to obtain monodispersed
nanoparticle and their composite. The second is how to
assemble the nanoparticles into ordered one-dimensional,
two-dimensional, or three-dimensional spatial configurations,
and many techniques have been used to prepare ordered
structure of nanoparticles, including LB technique, selfassembly technique, electrophoretic deposition and
magnetophoretic deposition. The third is the characterization of the nanoparticles and their assembly, and usually
UV-vis, FT-IR, XRD, TGA/DAT, zeta potential, XPS, TEM,
SEM, AFM, STM were used. Especially, the magnetic
properties of magnetic nanoparticles and their assembly
were characterized by Mssbauer spectra, magnetization
curve, ferromagnetic resonance (FMR), magnetoresistance
(R(H)), and EPR. The forth is the applications of the
nanoparticles and their assembly in various fields.
The syntheses of uniform-sized magnetic metal nanoparticles have been reported. Nevertheless, little work on
the fabrication of monodispersed and crystalline Fe O and
CoFe O nanoparticles has been found. In this paper, highly
crystalline and monodispersed Fe O and CoFe O magnetic
crystalline nanoparticles were obtained using chemical
coprecipitation in aqueous solution. Two kinds of nano1-7

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Permanent address: Department of Chemistry, Shandong University,

Jinan, 250100, P.R. China

particles were characterized by XRD, TEM, EDS, ED, FTIR, TGA/DTA, DSC and VSM and their properties were
compared. It was found that oleic acid molecule on the
Fe O nanoparticle is a bilayer adsorption, while that on
CoFe O nanoparticle is single layer adsorption.
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Experimental Section

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Preparation of Fe3O4 nanoparticle by chemical coprecipitation in aqueous solution. All the chemicals, including

FeCl 4H O(99+%), FeCl 6H O (99+%), sodium oleate

(98%), CHCl (HPLC grade) and CH COCH (HPLC
grade), were obtained from Aldrich Chemical Co. and used
without further purification. Distilled water was passed
through a six-cartridge Barnstead Nanopure II purification
train consisting of Macropure pretreatment and deoxygenated by bubbling with N gas for 1 h prior to the use, and the
main synthetic steps were carried out under a N gas
atmosphere. Typically, 2.70 g of FeCl 6H O and 1.00 g of
FeCl 4H O were dissolved into 50 mL of water. To this
solution, 25 mL of 25% ammonia was added at 80 C under
vigorous stirring. The stirring was continued for 30 min and
the reacted mixture was cooled to room temperature. The
precipitate was isolated in a magnetic field and washed with
20 mL of water. The precipitate was redispersed in 20 mL of
water, 1 g of sodium oleate in 10 mL of water was added,
and stirring for 1 h at room temperature. Then the suspension was slowly acidified with 1 M HCl until the pH = 4-5
and an oily black precipitate appeared. The precipitate was
dissolved into 230 mL of chloroform, obtained a transparent
solution. In order to remove the larger particle, 20 mL of
acetone was added to the chloroform solution, and the
solution became cloudy. Laying for 1 h, the larger particle
sedimentated to the bottom and the solution became
transparent again. The transparent solution was removed to
another beaker and 230 mL of acetone was added to
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Shi-Yong Zhao et al.

precipitate most of the particle, only the smaller particle

existed still in the solution. The precipitate was dried in air
naturally and could be soluble in chloroform readily.

Preparation of CoFe2O4 nanoparticle in aqueous solution. A 10 mL water, dissolving 0.54 g FeCl 6H O and
3

0.238 g CoCl 6H O, resulted in an aqueous solution.

Dissolving 1.2 g NaOH in 10 mL water. Adding NaOH
solution into the prepared solution under stirring at 80 C.
The stirring was continued for 30 min and cooled to room
temperature and the precipitate was isolated in a magnetic
field, and washed wish water three times. Coating was
carried out by adding aqueous solution of 0.2 g sodium
oleate in 10 mL water and stirring for 1 h. The suspension
was slowly acidified with 1 M HCl until the pH = 5, and an
oily black precipitate appeared. The oily black precipitate
was soluble in chloroform. The removal of bigger and
smaller particles was carried out as the same procedure for
Fe O nanoparticle.
2

Characterization of nanoparticles by XRD, TEM,

EDS, ED, FT-IR, TGA-DTA, DSC and VSM. The struc-

tural properties of synthesized nanoparticles were analyzed

by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) with a Philips X'PertMPD System. The average diameter of the crystals was
estimated using Scherrer's formula. TEM experiments and
corresponding electron diffraction (ED) were carried out on
a JEOL JEM2010 transmission electron microscope operated at 200 kV, and EDS was performed with an EDAX X-ray
energy-dispersive analysis system attached to the JEOL
JEM2010 transmission electron microscope. TEM samples
were prepared on the 400 mesh copper grid coated with
carbon. A drop of the nanoparticle solution was carefully
placed on the grid and dried in air. The size distributions of
the particles were measured from enlarged photographs of
the TEM images. The transmission FT-IR spectra were
recorded with a Perkin Elmer Spectrum 2000. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential thermal analysis
(DTA) studies were carried out using a Perkin Elmer (USA)
TGA7 Therogravimetric Analyzer at a rate of 10 C/min in a
N atmosphere. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)
measurements were performed using a Perkin Elmer differential scanning calorimeter pyris 1 at a ramp rate of 10 C/
min in a N atmosphere. The magnetization curves were
characterized with Lake Shore 7300 VSM.
o

Generally, XRD can be used to characterize the crystallinity of nanoparticle, and it gives an average diameters of
all the nanoparticles. The XRD patterns of the Fe O and
CoFe O nanoparticle samples are shown in Figure 1. The
discernible peaks in Figure 1(a) can be indexed to (220),
(311), (400), (333), and (440) planes of a cubic unit cell,
which corresponds to that of magnetite structure (JCPDS
card no. 79-0418), and the discernible peaks in Figure 1(b)
can be indexed to (220), (311), (400), (511), and (440)
planes of a cubic unit cell, which corresponds to cubic spinel
structure of cobalt iron oxide (JCPDS card, no. 22-1086).
3

XRD

patterns of

(a) Fe3O4

and (b)

CoFe2O4

nano-

particles.

The mean crystal sizes determined by Debye-Scherre

equation with XRD data have been found 8.8 nm for Fe O
and 14.8 nm for CoFe O , which are close to the particle
sizes calculated from TEM images (9.1 nm for Fe O and
14.6 nm for CoFe O ). This indicates that both of the Fe O
and CoFe O are all nanocrystalline. Figure 2(a) is the TEM
of Fe O nanoparticle monolayer formed by self-assembly
when a drop of the nanoparticle chloroform solution was
carefully placed on the grid and dried in air. Most of the
Fe O particles are irregular spherical. A monolayer of
nanoparticle is observed from the image with almost no any
multiayer on it. The area of single self-assembled monolayer
was calculated of about 50 m from the TEM with lower
magnification. Insertion in Figure 2(a) is the histogram of
the size distribution of Fe O nanoparticles obtained from
enlarged image of Figure 2(a). The mean size of Fe O
nanoparticles is 9.1 nm with a standard deviation 2.3 nm.
Figure 2(b) is the TEM image of CoFe O nanoparticle
monolayer formed by self-assembly. Most of the CoFe O
particles are also irregular spherical. The area of single selfassembled monolayer was filled the whole mesh of the
copper grid observed from the TEM with lower magnification. The histogram of the size distribution of CoFe O
nanoparticles obtained from enlarged image of Figure 2(b) is
shown in the insertion in Figure 2(b). The mean size is 14.6
nm and the standard deviation is 2.8 nm. EDS results
support the formation of nanoparticles. Figure 3(a) shows
the EDS of the Fe O nanoparticles, the particles contain Fe
element and Figure 3(b) shows the EDS of the CoFe O
nanoparticles, the particles contain two elements of Fe and
Co. The peaks attributed to Cu were caused by copper grid.
Electron diffraction (ED) was also used to check the
structure of the nanoparticle. In Figure 4(a) it revealed
densed ring patterns with d spacings of 3.02, 2.55, 2.11,
1.64, 1.51 , which match the standard body centered cubic
spinel structure of magnetite lines (JCPDS card, no. 790418). In Figure 4(b) it revealed dense ring patterns with d
spacings of 3.01, 2.54, 2.11, 1.63, 1.49 , which match the
standard body centered cubic spinel structure of cobalt iron
oxide lines (JCPDS card, no. 22-1086). These results are
agreeable to the XRD results. Figure 5(b) is FT-IR spectrum
2

Results and Discussion

Figure 1.

Synthesis of Magnetic Nanoparticles of Fe3O4 and CoFe2O4

Bull. Korean Chem. Soc. 2006, Vol. 27, No. 2

239

. TEM images of (a) Fe O and (b) CoFe O nanoparticles.

Figure 2

nanoparticle coated with oleic acid. The peak around 1706

cm still exists, meaning that some free oleic acid in the
Fe O nanoparticle sample, as will be supported by the
TGA/DTA results below. A strong peak around 1539 cm
appears, which is interpreted as the complexation between
the carboxylate and Fe O nanoparticles was formed. However, the peak around 1706 cm disappears completely and
a strong peak around 1559 cm was shown in FT-IR
spectrum of CoFe O nanoparticle coated with oleic acid as
shown in Figure 5(c). This indicates that there is no free
oleic acid in the CoFe O nanoparticle sample and the
complexation between the carboxylate and CoFe O nanoparticles was formed, this will be supported by the TGA/
DTA results below. Figure 6(a) shows the TGA/DTA curves
of Fe O nanoparticle coated with oleic acid. There are five
derivative peaks in the DTA curve which corresponding to
the five mass losses in the TGA curve. The first peak is at
about 118 C, and the percentage mass loss is about 0.80%,
which probably due to the removal of surface adsorbed
organic solvent and surface hydroxyls. The second peak is at
about 253 C, which is approximately the boiling or
decomposition temperature of oleic acid (b.p., 94-195 C/1.2
mmHg), and the percentage of mass loss is about 3.9%,
which probably due to the removal of free oleic acid on the
Fe O nanoparticles. The position of third peak is at about
377 C, and the percentage of mass loss is about 6.6%,
which corresponds to the oleic acid molecules that bind
directly with Fe O nanoparticle. The mass loss, as well as
the high adsorption temperature, confirms strong binding
between the oleic acid molecules and Fe O nanoparticle.
The bilayer adsorption of oleic acid molecules is agreeable
to the results of Markovich
. The compelling evidence
for bilayer formation in fatty acid coated magnetite particles
was provided by Hatton et al using TGA, DSC and small1

. EDS patterns of (a) Fe O and (b) Co Fe O nano-

Figure 3

particles.

of pure oleic acid. Oleic acid shows a strong absorption peak

of carbonyl stretch band around 1706 cm .
The strong bands at 2857 and 2923 cm belong to
methylene and methyl symmetric stretching vibration,
respectively. Figure 5(a) is FT-IR spectrum of Fe O
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Shi-Yong Zhao et al.

. ED patterns of (a) Fe3O4 and (b) Co Fe2O4 nanoparticles.

Figure 4

. FT-IR spectra of (a) Fe3O4 nanoparticle coated with oleic

acid, (b) pure oleic acid and (c) CoFe2O4 nanoparticle coated with
oleic acid.
Figure 5

angle neutron scattering (SANS). The temperature of

fourth peak is as high as 712 C, and the percentage of mass
loss is about 5.8%, which is due to the phase transition from
Fe O to FeO, because FeO is thermodynamically stable
above 570 C in phase diagram of the Fe-O system. At 752
C, there still exist a derivative peak corresponding to a
percentage mass loss of 4.4%, this maybe the deoxidation of
FeO since the TGA/DTA analysis was carried out under the
N atmosphere. There are also five derivative peaks in the
DTA curve of CoFe O nanoparticle coated with oleic acid
which corresponds to the five mass losses in the TGA curve
as shown in Figure 6(b). The peak temperatures are 100 C,
257 C, 376 C, 620 C, 681 C and the corresponding
percentages of mass losses are about 1.2%, 2.2%, 15.4%,
6.3%, 5.4%, respectively. Comparing with the TGA/DTA
curves of Fe O nanoparticles, there exist two obvious
differences. First, the second peak corresponding to the
removal of free oleic acid is very lower, this means that there
is few free oleic acid molecules in CoFe O nanoparticle
sample, which is agreeable to FTIR results above. Secondly,
the monument of oleic acid molecules binding directly with
CoFe O nanoparticle is as high as 15.4% (the third peak),
which is even higher than the sum of free oleic acid and
25

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. TGA/DTA curves of (a) Fe3O4 and (b) CoFe2O4

nanoparticles coated with oleic acid.
Figure

binding directly oleic acid of Fe O nanoparticle sample

(3.9% + 6.6%). The coverage of the oleic acid molecules
binding directly with Fe O and CoFe O nanoparticles can
be calculated from the TGA results and assumed that all the
nanoparticles were spheres with the diameter of 9.1 nm for
Fe O nanoparticle and 14.6 nm for CoFe O nanoparticle.
The coverage was 0.80 nm /molecule for Fe O nanoparticle
and 0.19 nm /molecule for CoFe O nanoparticle. Owing to
the fact that in close-packed oleic acid layer each molecule
occupies an area of 0.21 nm , it can be concluded that in the
case of CoFe O nanoparticle the oleic acid molecules
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Synthesis of Magnetic Nanoparticles of Fe3O4 and CoFe2O4

Bull. Korean Chem. Soc. 2006, Vol. 27, No. 2

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Figure 7. DSC curves of (a) Fe3O4 and (b) CoFe2O4 nanoparticles

coated with oleic acid.

binding directly with nanoparticle were close-packed and

even crowded, maybe a few molecules were a little far from
the surface of nanoparticle and were sandwiched between
two molecules that contact with the surface of nanoparticle
directly. Because the high curvature of the nanoparticle
surface would lead to greater space between the two
molecules far from the surface of nanoparticle. The higher
monument of oleic acid results in the better solubility of
CoFe O nanoparticle sample in organic solvent than Fe O
nanoparticle sample. Figure 7 shows the DSC curves of the
Fe O and CoFe O nanoparticles coated with oleic acid. A
large endothermic transition was found from 45 C to 650 C.
The transition is at 395 C for Fe O nanoparticles, and 416
C for CoFe O nanoparticles, which is related to the oleic
acid molecules binding directly with nanoparticle. The
higher peak temperature and larger enthalpy for CoFe O
nanoparticles than those for Fe O nanoparticles mean that
the monument of oleic acid molecules binding directly with
CoFe O nanoparticle are larger than that with Fe O
nanoparticle, and this has been confirmed by the TGA/DTA
results.
Hatton
thought that in the bilayer surfactant
stabilized Fe O nanoparticle system, there exit partial
interpenetration of the hydrocarbon tails of the primary and
secondary surfactants. This is agreeable to the case of our
Fe O nanoparticle coating with bilayer adsorption of oleic
acid molecules. But for the case of our CoFe O nanoparticle, the coverage of the primary oleic acid molecules is
so high that the steric constraints of the hydrocarbon chains
preclude the formation of hydrocarbon tails interpenetration
of the primary and secondary oleic acid layer, because there
is no enough space between the hydrocarbon tails of the
primary layer. So the amount of oleic acid in secondary layer
is very little.
The superparamagnetic behavior is documented by the
hysteresis loop measured at 300 K as shown in Figure 8.
There is almost immeasurable coercivity (0.814 Oe) for
Fe O at room temperature, this indicates that the Fe O
particle are superparamagnetic and nanosized. The satu2

24

ration magnetization, M , are 60.1 emu/g for Fe O , which

are lower than that of bulk magnetite particles (M = 92
emu/g). The decrease in M is due to superparamagnetism of
magnetite particles, which occur when the particle size
decreases below 30 or 20 nm. From the magnetization
curves it can be seen that the magnetization does not saturate
for Fe O , even at 10000 Oe. This phenomenon can be
explained from the shape and size distributions observed by
TEM. Comparing with Fe O nanoparticle, CoFe O nanoparticle has larger coercivity (243 Oe) at room temperature.
This means that CoFe O nanoparticle is a not very hard
magnetic material.
s

bulk

27,28

Conclusions

al.

et

Fe3O4 and (b) CoFe2O4 nanoparticles coated with oleic acid.

Figure 8. Magnetization curve versus applied field at 300 K for (a)

Fe O and CoFe O nanoparticle has been synthesized

successfully by chemical coprecipitation methods in aqueous solution and coated with oleic acid. These nanoparticles
can be transferred to organic solution and the self-assembled
monolayer films of these nanoparticles were formed using
the organic solution. Both of the two nanoparticles are
spherical and the particles are magnetite structure and
monocrystalline. FT-IR, TGA/DTA, DSC results indicate
that the oleic acid molecules on the surface of Fe O
nanoparticle is a bilayer adsorption, while that on CoFe O
nanoparticle maybe a single layer adsorption. The superparamagnetic behavior was documented by the hysteresis
3

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Bull. Korean Chem. Soc. 2006, Vol. 27, No. 2

loop measured at 300 K, and it was found that Fe3O4

nanoparticle has good superparamagnetic and CoFe2O4
nanoparticle is a not very hard magnetic material.

Acknowledgment. This research is financially supported

by National Research Laboratory Program of Korean
Ministry of Science and Technology.
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