Solution-phase synthesis of single-crystalline Fe3O4 magnetic nanobelts

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Abstract

Single-crystalline Fe3O4 nanobelt was first synthesized on a large scale by a facile and efficient hydrothermal process. The samples were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The SAED pattern obtained from a typical individual nanobelt has a highly symmetrical dotted lattice, which reveals the single-crystalline nature of belt-like Fe3O4. The saturation magnetization of the Fe3O4 nanobelt is higher than the wire, hollow sphere and octahedral structure. Such methods are easy and mild, and could synthesize other metal oxide in such experiment situation.

Introduction

Since the discovery of carbon nanotubes in 1991 [1], one-dimensional nanomaterials, such as nanotubes [2], [3], nanowires [4], [5], [6], [7], and nanobelts or nanoribbons [8], [9], [10], [11] have attracted much attention in the past decade because of their novel physical properties and potential applications in constructing nanoscale electric and optoelectronic devices [12], [13], [14], [15]. Because of their novel electronic properties, low-dimensional nanostructures are considered the building blocks for future nanoscale electronic and optoelectronic nanodevices [1], [16], [17]. In the past decade, the development of new techniques to synthesize nanomaterials has attracted great attention, including discharge [18], [19], laser ablation [4], template-assisted synthesis [20], [21], and other methods [22]. In particular, one-dimensional metal oxides such as ZnO [8], [23], SnO2 [24], WO3 [25], and Ta2O5 [26], [27], so-called functional materials, have been widely studied.

Magnetic nanostructures are a scientifically interesting and technologically important area of research with many present and future applications in biomedicine, magnetic recording, and spin electronics [28], [29], [30]. Magnetite (Fe3O4), an important member of spinel-type ferrite, is used widely as a pigment [31], recording material [32], electrophotographic developer, and catalyst [33], etc. Various chemistry-based processing routes have been developed to synthesize several types of nanosized magnetic particles. Qian and his group [34] synthesized Fe3O4 fractal nanocrystals through a surfactant-assisted solvothermal process. Chen and his group [35] synthesized ferromagnetic Fe3O4 nanowires by a hydrothermal process with an external magnetic field applied. There are also several other technologically promising techniques, including sol–gel, freeze-drying, laser pyrolysis, and vaporization condensation [36], [37], [38]. Our group [39], [40] also have synthesized BaCO3, MnO2 1D nanostructure with hydrothermal treatment. However, one of the main challenges faced by almost all of these novel techniques is the ability to synthesize Fe3O4 nanobelts with the desired compositional, structural, and crystalline uniformity. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports about magnetic Fe3O4 nanobelt.

In this paper, we report a facile hydrothermal method for the preparation of novel Fe3O4 nanobelt. Especially, the saturation magnetization of the Fe3O4 nanobelt is higher than the wire, hollow sphere and octahedral structure. Such methods are easy and mild, and could synthesize other metal oxide. In such higher temperature we did not use any N2 or inert gases to get Fe3O4.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

All the chemical reagents were of analytical grade and used without further purification. In a typical preparation, 0.053 mol PEG-6000 and 0.033 mol FeCl2 was dissolved in 30 ml solution (the volume ratio of methanol and distilled water is 1:2). And then NaOH powder was added to the above solution. The solution was then sealed into a Teflon-lined autoclave, followed by hydrothermal treatment at 180 °C for 17 h. The system was then allowed to cool to room temperature. The resulting product was

Results and discussion

The morphology of the synthesized Fe3O4 was characterized with TEM. The typical TEM image (Fig. 1a and b) showed that the products consisted of a large quantity of uniform belt with 10–15 μm in length and 70–90 nm in width. Analysis of a number of belt-like structures with different widths reveals that the average length-to-width ratio is in the range 142–166. Fig. 1b shows the stripes in the belt structures, which confirm that the structures are thin. Fig. 1a shows some nanobelts were curly, so

Conclusions

In summary, we demonstrate an economical and efficient process to synthesis Fe3O4 nanobelts via a one-step solution-based route. At room temperature Fe3O4 nanobelts have a typical ferromagnetic behavior. The saturation magnetization of the Fe3O4 nanobelt is higher than the wire, hollow sphere, and octahedral structure. In conclusion, our results illustrate the potential experiment situation as templates for the one-step synthesis of 1D Fe3O4 nanobelt.

Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (20573017) and Analysis and Testing Foundation of Northeast Normal University.

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