FRACTAL SURFACE MAGHEMITE NANOPARTICLES PREPARED BY CO-PRECIPITATION: THE INFLUENCE OF IRON CONCENTRATION AND BASE NATURE

Two series of magnetic nanopowders were synthesized at room temperature starting from a mixture of iron II and III precursors, FeSO4 and FeCl3, respectively. Precipitation agents, as KOH and NaOH were used. While the concentration of the added ferrous and ferric solutions ranged between 0.1 M and 0.0125 M, the hydroxide solution concentration was maintained constant (1 M). TEM images of the samples showed that the particles shape changes from quasi spherical to spherical. For both series the crystallite size decreases with iron concentration, from 9 to 2 nm for KOH series and from 10 to 3 nm for NaOH series. Moessbauer Spectroscopy was signaling only Fe3+ in the final spinel product. BET measurements revealed the material mesoporosity and fractal structure of maghemite nanoparticles that explain the unusual high surface area, similar to 240 m(2)/g. All the samples actually exhibit superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature with saturation magnetization up to 73 emu/g value closed to those of bulk maghemite.