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Synthesis and characterization of water-soluble magnetite nanocrystals via one-step sol-gel pathway

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  • Special Topic: Magnetic Materials at Nano-scale
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Abstract

Water-soluble magnetite nanocrystals have been prepared by one-step non-alkoxide sol-gel method. The magnetic properties of magnetite nanocrystals obtained are size dependent. The experimental results also reveal that 2-pyrrolidone not only serves as solvent, but also involves surface coordination which renders the magnetite nanoparticles water-soluble and colloidal solution stable. Although the current synthetic approach is a small modification to the non-alkoxide sol-gel method, it allows us to directly obtain high-quality water-soluble magnetic nanocrystals. In addition, we realize that this method could be easily extended to preparation of many other transition and main group metal oxide water-soluble nanocrystals only from simple metal ion salts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    HongZhang Qi, Biao Yan, ChengKui Li & Wei Lu

  2. Shanghai Key Laboratory of D&A for Metal-Functional Materials, Shanghai, 200092, China

    HongZhang Qi, Biao Yan, ChengKui Li & Wei Lu

Authors
  1. HongZhang Qi
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  2. Biao Yan
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  3. ChengKui Li
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  4. Wei Lu
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Correspondence to Wei Lu.

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Qi, H., Yan, B., Li, C. et al. Synthesis and characterization of water-soluble magnetite nanocrystals via one-step sol-gel pathway. Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 54, 1239–1243 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-011-4375-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-011-4375-0

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