Synthesis And Magnetic Properties Of Carbon Coated Iron Iron Oxide Core Shell Nanoparticles

It cannot be overstated that nanoparticles have earned their reputation for being famously practical, from simple artisan pottery to biomedical applications. Since Faraday's famous observations into thin gold films during the 1800's, nanoparticle research has shown the world that experimentation into synthesizing nanoparticles, and more interestingly core/shell nanoparticles, will prove worthwhile in the fight against cancerous cells. As it stands, carbon-coated iron-based core/shell nanoparticles have shown promising results, thrice in high magnetic saturation, high coercivity, and biocompatibility. The objective of this thesis is to compare already synthesized iron-based core/shell nanoparticles to our synthesized nanoparticles, as well as indicate another potential precursor candidate to be used for synthesis of nanoparticles. The magnetic properties of the product of pyrolysis of iron phthalocyanine annealed under an oxygen-rich environment at different temperatures are investigated with a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and X-ray diffractometry (XRD). The magnetic hysteresis curve of different samples measured at 10 K and 300 K illustrates the strong magnetic responses to a varying magnetic field under a VSM. The magnetic saturation (MS), magnetic remanence (MR) and coercivity (HC) values for all samples are listed in Tables 3 through 6. We investigate the effects of annealing at different temperatures in an oxygen-rich environment for iron phthalocyanine, and demonstrate that as the annealing temperature is elevated, HC increases while the MS decreases. As the annealing temperature is elevated further above an optimal value, a sharp decreasing change of magnetic parameters can be related to the degradation of iron and the formation of iron oxide particles in different phases such as magnetite (Fe3O4), maghemite (Îđ-Fe2O3), and hematite (Îł-Fe2O3). To conclude, the magnetic properties of iron phthalocyanine post pyrolysis can be varied as a function of annealing temperature as shown in Figure 32 and 33. More detailed studies will be necessary to define nanoparticle distribution, their morphology, sizes, and crystal structure, along with the percent composition of inspected samples. The magnetic properties of the product of pyrolysis of iron porphyrin were also studied for comparison and their magnetic properties can be seen in Table 7. While more research into higher annealed temperatures should be performed, iron porphyrin has shown to be a promising candidate for synthesis of nanoparticles due to its interesting features, mainly its constant MR/MS ratio over different annealed temperatures.