Stabilization of magnetite nano iron oxide with a series of novel surfactants

Abstract

Oleic acid which is one of the palm oil derivatives is known to effectively stabilize dispersions of nanomagnetite in nonpolar solvent. Stabilization occurs because the carboxylic acid group covalently reacts with the surface of the magnetite and the aliphatic chain extends out into the nonpolar solvent, preventing aggregation of the particles by a steric (entropic) mechanism. One goal of this work has been to develop a generalized methodology for stabilizing nanomagnetite dispersions using a series of novel surfactants which had been synthesized from palm oil derivatives so that the resultant modified magnetite nanoparticles can be used in a range of applications.These nanoparticles have been characterized by FT-SEM, DLS, FTIR and XRD. The FTIR results showed that the surfactants had been successfully coated with the magnetite nano iron oxide and it exhibited a particle size in the range of 25-30 nm as shown on the FT-SEM. In addition to that, the X-ray diffraction pattern showed that the the modified nanoparticles is corresponded to the spinal phase of the bare magnetite iron oxi