Microstructural study and size control of iron oxide nanoparticles produced by microemulsion technique

Abstract

Abstract In this paper we study the possibility to control the size of iron oxide (Fe 3 O 4 ) nanoparticles by the microemulsion technique. We used a water‐in‐oil reverse microemulsion system with n‐hexadecil trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a cationic surfactant, n‐butanol as a co‐surfactant, n‐hexanol as a continuous oil phase, and aqueous phase. The magnetite nanopowders were synthesized by a single microemulsion technique in which the aqueous phase contains only metal ions (Fe 2+ and Fe 3+ ). The particle size of the powders varied in the range of 14–36 nm depending on the preparation conditions. We studied the influence of changing the water/surfactant ratio ( W 0 = 5, 10, 15, 20) and the metallic ion (Fe 2+ and Fe 3+ ) concentration on the particle size distribution and crystallinity of Fe 3 O 4 . (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)