Synthesis of iron nanoparticles via chemical reduction with palladium ion seeds

We report on the synthesis of highly monodisperse iron nanoparticles, using a chemical reduction method. Iron nanoparticles with an average diameter of 6 nm and a geometric standard deviation of 1.3 were synthesized at a pH of 9.50 from ferric chloride precursor with sodium borohydride as the reducing agent, polyacrylic acid as the dispersing agent, and palladium ions as seeds for iron nanoparticle nucleation. The resulting nanoparticles were ferromagnetic at 5 K and superparamagnetic at 350 K. The dispersing agent polyacrylic acid (PAA) was shown to prevent iron nanoparticles and possibly palladium clusters from aggregating; in the absence of PAA, only aggregated iron nanoparticles were obtained. The addition of palladium ions decreased the diameter of iron nanoparticles presumably by providing sites for heterogeneous nucleation onto palladium clusters. In the absence of palladium ions, the mean diameter of iron nanoparticles was approximately 110 nm and the standard deviation increased to 2.0. The pH of the solution also was found to have a significant effect on the particle diameter, likely by affecting PAA ionization and altering the conformation of the polymer chains. At lower pH (8.75), the PAA is less ionized and its ability to disperse palladium clusters is reduced, so the number of palladium seeds decreases. Therefore, the resulting iron nanoparticles were larger, 59 nm in diameter, versus 6 nm for nanoparticles formed at a pH of 9.50.