Development of magnetic chromatography to sort polydisperse nanoparticles in ferrofluids

Whatever the strategy of synthesis, nanoparticles in magnetic fluids commonly feature a broad size distribution. However, the presence of several size populations in ferrofluids is often problematic because of the close relationship between the efficiency of the nanoparticles and their physicochemical properties. In this work, a magnetic size sorting procedure is developed in order to reduce this polydispersity, using the magnetic properties of the iron oxide nanoparticles. This magnetic sorting with an adjustable magnetic field allows isolation of the small superparamagnetic particles as well as the larger particles. Magnetometry, nuclear magnetic relaxation dispersion profiles and transmission electron microscopy were successfully used to check the efficiency of the magnetic sorting procedure, which was shown to work as a 'magnetic' chromatography.