One-step Cathodic Electrochemical Synthesis and Characterization of Dextran Coated Magnetite Nanoparticles

Abstract

In this research, a simple and efficient cathodic electrochemical deposition (CED) route was<br />developed for the preparation of magnetite nanoparticles (NPs) in an aqueous media. The<br />surface of magnetite NPs was also coated for the first time via an in situ procedure during the<br />CED process. In this method, initially, the Fe3O4 NPs (with size ~10 nm) were prepared from the<br />Fe2+/Fe3+ chloride bath through CED process. Then, dextran as the coating agent was coated<br />on the surface of Fe3O4 NPs during the CED process. The prepared NPs were characterized<br />by different techniques such as XRD, FE-SEM, TEM, IR, TGA, DLS and VSM. The XRD results<br />proved the pure magnetite i.e. Fe3O4 crystal phase of the prepared samples. Morphological<br />observations through FE-SEM and TEM revealed particle morphology with nano-sizes of 8<br />nm and 12 nm for the naked and dextran coated NPs, respectively. The dextran coat on the<br />surfaces of NPs was confirmed by FT-IR and DSC-TGA analyses. The average hydrodynamic<br />diameters of 17 nm and 54 nm were measured from DLS analysis for the naked and dextran<br />coated NPs, respectively. The magnetic analysis by VSM revealed that prepared NPs have<br />superparamagnetic behavior, i.e. Ms=82.3 emu g–1, magnetization Mr=0.71 emug–1 and Ce=2.3<br />Oe for the naked NPs, and Ms=43.1 emu g–1, Mr=0.47 emu g–1 and Ce=0.81Oe for the dextran<br />coated NPs. These results implied that this electrochemical strategy can be recognized as an<br />effective preparation method of polymer coated Fe3O4 NPs.