Electrochemical Synthesis of Magnetite Nanoparticles through Base Electrogeneration Strategy and their Doping with Nickel(II) Cations and Surface Capping with Mono-, Di- and Polysaccharides

In this paper, magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles capped with glucose/sucrose/starch have been synthesized though a simple and easy electrochemical method. In this method, OH– anions were produced via galvanostatic cathodic current on the cathode surface, and then reacted with metal cations (i.e. Fe2+, Fe3+ and Ni2+) to form Ni-doped Fe3O4 deposit. At the same electrochemical conditions, saccharides capped Ni-doped iron oxides were also synthesized from saccharide-added electrolyte. The prepared samples were specified using FE-SEM, XRD, VSM, FT-IR and thermal gravimetric analyses. The FT-IR, XRD and FE-SEM data approved the formation of Ni-doped Fe3O4 particles with size of 30 nm. In the TG profiles, the sharp weight loss (15.5%wt.) at the temperatures of 150-300 oC proved the capping of iron oxide surfaces by saccharide layer. The measured magnetic data by VSM analyses indicated that the prepared samples exhibit high saturation magnetization and low remanence at the applied external fields, and have proper superparamagnetic characters.