Sonochemical synthesis and characterization of pure nanometer-sized Fe3O4 particles

Sonochemical synthesis of pure nanometer-size Fe3O4 powder with particle size of ca 10 nm is reported in this article. Fe3O4 can be simply synthesized by sonication of iron(II)acetate in water under an argon atmosphere. The properties of pure nanometer-size Fe3O4 particles were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Mössbauer spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) with an external magnetic field, and quantum design SQUID magnetization measurements. The prepared Fe3O4 nanoparticles are superparamagnetic and its magnetization at room temperature is very low (<1.25 emu g−1).