Preparation of Hexagonal Fe3O4 Nanometer Particles via Weakly Magnetic Field Assisted Oxidation Co-Precipitation

Abstract

This paper utilized a novel oxidative co-precipitation method to synthesis hexagonal Fe3O4 nanometer particles, which assisted by a weakly magnetic field. The crystallinity, morphology, particle size distribution, compositions and magnetic properties of the as-prepared particles were investigated using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), ultrasonic particle sizer (UPS), X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The formation mechanism of the hexagonal Fe3O4 nanometer particles, which assisted by a weakly magnetic field was also discussed. The results shown that the as-prepared hexagonal particles were purity magnetite (Fe3O4), and the weakly magnetic field could accelerate the phase transformation from goethite (α-FeOOH) to magnetite (Fe3O4), increase the particle size and uniform the morphology. The values of saturation magnetization (Ms) and coercivity (H) of the hexagonal magnetic particles are 71.05 emu•g-1 and 474.3 Oe, respectively, which contributed to the morphology anisotropy of the particles.