Preparation, structure, and magnetic properties of polystyrene coated by Fe3O4 nanoparticles

A novel method of fabricating core-shell structure particles, comprising nearly monodisperse polystyrene (PS) spheres as cores and Fe3O4 as shells, is submitted. In this research, the magnetite (Fe3O4) shell was prepared by seeded growth from the reaction of FeCl2 with diethylene glycol (DEG) in aqueous solutions. The thickness of the shell were controlled in the range of 0-60 nm by using slow injection. The composition and the structure of the shell were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TG), and vibrating-sample magnetometry (VSM). It is found that there are some differences between the magnetic composite spheres shelled with Fe3O4 and pure Fe3O4 particles, such as the size of the magnetites and the ferromagnetic property. Furthermore, the spheres exhibited the superparamagnetic characterization when the thickness of the Fe3O4 shell was less than 15 nm.