Facile Method for Preparation of Silica Coated Monodisperse Superparamagnetic Microspheres

Abstract

This paper presents a facile method for preparation of silica coated monodisperse superparamagnetic microsphere. Herein, monodisperse porous polystyrene-divinylbenzene microbeads were prepared by seeded emulsion polymerization and subsequently sulfonated with acetic acid/H 2 SO 4 . The as-prepared sulfonated macroporous beads were magnetized in presence of Fe 2+ /Fe 3+ under alkaline condition and were subjected to silica coating by sol-gel process, providing water compatibility, easily modifiable surface form, and chemical stability. FE-SEM, TEM, FT-IR, and TGA were employed to characterize the silica coated monodisperse magnetic beads (~7.5 μ m). The proposed monodisperse magnetic beads can be used as mobile solid phase particles candidate for protein and DNA separation.