The study of magnetite nanoparticles is particularly interesting
because of their wide variety of technological applications in fields
like recording devices, where the grains must be small and
magnetically decoupled [1–4]; medicines supported by specific
polymers [5–7]; pigments [8]; and biotechnology [9], they are also
useful as a raw material in the synthesis of maghemite [10].
Recently, magnetite ferrofluids have become very attractive
materials because they can be directed by the action of the
magnetic field; they absorb electromagnetic energy with heat
evolution and their physical properties may change with the
application of a magnetic field [11,12].
gelatinous precipitate is then isolated from the solution by
centrifugation or magnetic decantation without washing with
water. The synthesis of magnetite nanoparticles by this way has
the advantages of operation simplicity, the use of economic
reagents and it is still useful to study the influence of solution
conditions in the size of the precipitated particles [22].
spherical but incipient octahedral crystals are observed. With
increasing iron concentration and temperature, an asymmetrical
distribution as well as dispersion in precipitated magnetite size
appeared. The magnetite obtained at 0.8 mol l1 and room
temperature, which has a similar diameter to the sample
synthesized at 0.4 mol l1 and 70 8C, represents an economical
variant of superparamagnetic nanoparticle synthesis because of its
high yield. Using the microtome cuts the spherical cellulose beads
reveal its internal structure containing large pores of about one
hundred nanometers as shown by TEM analysis. Magnetite
nanoparticles are confined within the pores that exist in the
cellulose structure. The magnetite nanoparticles maintain their
magnetic properties after the sphere flocculation.