A Green and Facile Approach for Synthesis of Magnetite Nanoparticles

This paper presents a facile, rapid and green method to prepare magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles in one step reaction. In this method, an aqueous solution of ferric chloride hexa hydrate, ferrous chloride tetra hydrate (2/1 molar ratio) was mixed with carob leaf extract and heated for 5 minutes at 80℃. The magnetite nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). XRD analysis showed that the magnetite nanoparticles are well-monodisperse with 8 nm of average diameter. A possible synthesis mechanism of magnetite nanoparticles was presented at the same time.