Size control of iron oxide nanoparticles with organic phase synthesis methods

Abstract

Iron oxide nanoparticles are being utilized in various applications such as magnetic materials, catalysts, and biomedical applications due to its abundance and functionality. In those applications, size of iron oxide nanoparticles are closely related to magnetic property and catalytic activity, so appropriate preparation methods able to control size is important in functional applications. However, previous studies for the synthesis of iron oxide nanoparticles reported size ranges of nanoparticles not suitable for real applications. In this research, iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized with representative organic phase methods: borohydride reduction method, carbonyl thermal decomposition method, and polyol reduction in order to reduce sizes, and sizes were controlled by variation of the amount of surfactants and process time. As a result, nanoparticles within 15 nm were obtained from all the three organic phase methods, and the size controllability of nanoparticles with variation of synthesis methods, the amount of surfactants, and time was confirmed.