Microemulsion Assisted Synthesis of Magnetite Nanoparticles

Abstract

Microemulsion techniques have been widely used to prepare nanoparticles (NPs) of controlled shapes and dimensions. Magnetite nanoparticles (Fe v 3 O 4 ) of various sizes were synthesized using the water in oil (w/o) microemulsion as nano-reactors. Commonly available mustard and soybean oils were used beside hexane as oil phases for the synthesis. The effect of the oil phase on the structure, optical band gap and morphology of the nanoparticles were studied. The X-ray diffractogram of each of the samples showed a well-defined crystalline phase with no effect of the oil phase in their crystal structure. UV spectra of the samples showed the surface plasmon resonance at nearly the same value of 220 nm with different bandgap energies. The average diameter of the spheroid particles was found to be 57 nm, 33 nm and 24 nm on using hexane, mustard oil, and soybean oil as organic phases, respectively. This way, the nanoparticles of variable sizes could be prepared by changing the oil phase in the microemulsion. Keywords: Magnetite, Microemulsion, Soybean oil, Sunflower oil, Optical band gap