Journal of Chemistry
Volume 2016 (2016), Article ID 7604748, 9 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/7604748

Research Article

Preparation of Magnetic Nanoparticles via a Chemically Induced Transition: Presence/Absence of Magnetic Transition on the Treatment Solution Used

Yanshuang Chen, Qin Chen, Hong Mao, Yueqiang Lin, and Jian Li

School of Physical Science and Technology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China

Received 26 November 2015; Accepted 13 December 2015

Academic Editor: José L. A. Mediano

Copyright © 2016 Yanshuang Chen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract.

The dependence of magnetic transition on the treatment solution used in the preparation of magnetic nanoparticles was investigated using as-prepared products from paramagnetic FeOOH/Mg(OH)₂ via a chemically induced transition. Treatment using FeCl₃ and CuCl solutions led to a product that showed no magnetic transition, whereas the product after treatment with FeSO₄ or FeCl₂ solutions showed ferromagnetism. Experiments revealed that the magnetism was caused by the ferrimagnetic γ-Fe₂O₃ phase in the nanoparticles, which had a coating of ferric compound. This observation suggests that Fe²⁺ in the treatment solution underwent oxidation to Fe³⁺, thereby inducing the magnetic transition. The magnetic nanoparticles prepared via treatment with an FeSO₄ solution contained a larger amount of the nonmagnetic phase. This resulted in weaker magnetization even though these nanoparticles were larger than those prepared by treatment with an FeCl₂ solution. The magnetic transition of the precursor (FeOOH/Mg(OH)₂) was dependent upon treatment solutions and was essentially induced by the oxidation of Fe²⁺ and simultaneous dehydration of FeOOH phase. The transition was independent of the acid radical ions in the treatment solution, but the coating on the magnetic crystallites varied with changes in the acid radical ion.

1. Introduction

Nanotechnology involves the understanding and control of matter with dimensions of roughly 1–100 nm [1]. Magnetic nanoparticles have attracted increasing interest because their size range enables the investigation of the fundamental aspects of magnetic-ordering phenomena in materials with reduced dimensions, and this has the potential to lead to new technological applications [2, 3]. Studies on magnetic nanoparticles have focused on the development of simple and effective methods for the fabrication of nanoparticles with controlled size, morphology, and properties [4, 5]. Iron oxide nanoparticles including magnetite (Fe₃O₄), hematite (α-Fe₂O₃), maghemite (γ-Fe₂O₃), goethite (α-FeOOH), and akaganeite (β-FeOOH) nanoparticles have attracted enormous attention due to their interesting properties [6–10]. Many methods have been developed for the preparation of γ-Fe₂O₃ magnetic nanoparticles, including coprecipitation [11], a gas-phase reaction technique [12], direct thermal decomposition [13], thermal decomposition-oxidation [14], sonochemical synthesis [15], a microemulsion technique [16], hydrothermal synthesis [17], a vaporization-condensation method [18], and a sol-gel approach [19].

Reactions for the synthesis of oxide nanoparticles using the coprecipitation method can be grouped into two categories. In the first category, the oxide is produced directly; in the second category, a precursor is produced initially and then subjected to further processing (drying, calcination, and subsequent steps) [20]. During the chemical reaction, which is followed by calcination or annealing, a new phase is formed. In addition to the transition from amorphous to crystalline, the particle size increases, and the crystallites aggregate as the calcination temperature increases [21]. The conventional aqueous synthesis of γ-Fe₂O₃ particles involves three or more steps [22], but we recently found a new route for the production of γ-Fe₂O₃ magnetic nanoparticles that requires only two steps. This method involves the preparation of the paramagnetic FeOOH/Mg(OH)₂ precursor via a coprecipitation method, followed by treatment of the hydroxide precursor in the liquid phase using a ferrous chloride (FeCl₂) solution [23]. During this treatment, Mg(OH)₂ dissolves, and the paramagnetic FeOOH precursor transforms into ferrimagnetic γ-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles via dehydration:

This method is referred to as a chemically induced transition [24, 25]. However, it remains unclear whether such a magnetic transition can be produced using other solutions. In the present work, we used aqueous solutions of ferric chloride (FeCl₃), cuprous chloride (CuCl), ferrous sulfate (FeSO₄), and ferrous chloride (FeCl₂) as treatment solutions to investigate the dependence of the magnetic transition on the treatment solution used and to attempt to explain the mechanism of the transition in the liquid phase.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Chemicals

FeCl₃, Mg(NO₃)₂, NaOH, CuCl, FeSO₄, and FeCl₂ of analytical grade and all other chemicals were used as received without further purification. Distilled water was used throughout the experiments.

2.2. Preparation

The precursor was synthesized via coprecipitation. An aqueous mixture of FeCl₃ (1 M, 40 mL) and Mg(NO₃)₂ (2 M, with 0.05 mol HCl; 10 mL) was added to an aqueous NaOH solution (0.7 M, 500 mL). The resulting solution was then heated to boiling for 5 min under stirring. The red-brown precursor precipitated gradually during this process. The precursor was collected and washed with dilute HNO₃ solution (0.01 M) until the pH of the supernatant liquid was 7-8.

The as-prepared precursor was mixed with the treatment solution (0.25 M, 400 mL), and the resulting mixture was allowed to boil for 30 min. The products were then dehydrated with acetone and allowed to air-dry. Treatment with FeCl₃, CuCl, and FeSO₄ solutions produced samples (), (), and (), respectively. For comparison, treatment was also performed in an FeCl₂ solution to produce sample ().

2.3. Characterization

Crystal structures and specific magnetization curves were obtained for samples ()–() using X-ray diffraction (XRD; XRD-7000, Shimadzu, Japan) and vibrating-sample magnetometry (VSM; HH-15, Nju-yq, China) at room temperature, respectively. The bulk chemical species, surface chemical composition, and morphology of samples () and () were determined using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS; Quanta-200, Genesis, USA), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS; XSAM800, Krator, UK), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM; Tecnai G20 ST, FEI, USA), respectively.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Results

XRD spectra are shown in Figure 1 for all of the samples. The crystal structure of samples () and () was different from that of sample (), whereas the main structure of sample () was identical to that of sample (), which corresponded to ferrite-like γ-Fe₂O₃. The results showed that sample () contained MgSO₄·5H₂O and Fe₂(SO₄)₃·11H₂O. The crystal phase of samples () and () is difficult to be distinguished from the XRD spectra, but it can be determined that both did not contain ferrite-like phase. Specific magnetization curves measured at room temperature are shown for all samples in Figure 2. The curves for samples () and () exhibited similar, apparently paramagnetic, behavior. Similar to sample (), sample () appeared to be ferromagnetic having coercivity (see the windows in Figure 2), but its magnetization was weaker than that of sample ().

Figure 1: XRD patterns of all samples, with (hkl), , , and corresponding to γ-Fe₂O₃, FeCl₃⋅6H₂O, MgSO₄⋅5H₂O, and Fe₂(SO₄)₃⋅11H₂O, respectively.

Figure 2: Specific magnetization curves measured at room temperature for all samples.

According to the XRD and VSM results, samples () and () showed no magnetic transition; in contrast, sample () exhibited a transition similar to that shown by sample (). The specific saturation magnetization values () for samples () and () were determined from a plot of versus (where is the strength of magnetic field) in the high-field region, which was linear for strong magnetic fields [26]. versus () plots were represented as inserts of Figure 2, and the values were determined by extrapolating plots to -axis to be 59.20 and 43.36 emu/g for samples () and (), respectively.

Figure 3 shows EDS spectra for samples () and (). Sample () contained Fe, O, and Cl, and sample () contained S and Mg, in addition to Fe and O. The quantitative results are listed in Table 1. XPS measurements revealed the same chemical species that were identified by the EDS analysis in samples () and (). The XPS spectra are shown in Figure 4. The XRD and EDS results suggested that the γ-Fe₂O₃ phase was dominant in samples () and (). There was also a Cl-containing phase in sample (), and two S-containing phases in sample (). It is possible that the Cl-containing phase in sample () was FeCl₃·6H₂O [25], but that the content of FeCl₃·6H₂O may be so low that it did not produce clear diffraction peaks in the XRD spectrum (see Figure 1). The XRD results also implied that the S-containing phases in sample () were MgSO₄·5H₂O and Fe₂(SO₄)₃·11H₂O. Accordingly, the Fe2p3/2 lines and O1s lines observed for the two samples and the S2p3/2 line observed for sample () may be associated with two or more species. Detailed data on binding energies are listed in Table 2. We deduced from the experimental results that the binding energy of Mg1s in MgSO₄·5H₂O was approximately 1304.9 eV. In addition, it is noticed that the ferrite-like spinel structure, γ-Fe₂O₃ and Fe₃O₄, is difficult to discriminate by XRD due to peak broadening [27] and by XPS because the data are very close (see Table 2). However, Fe₃O₄ is not very stable and is sensitive to oxidation [28]. It was found that Fe₃O₄ nanocrystallites transformed into γ-Fe₂O₃ nanocrystallites using ferric nitrate treatment [29]. Therefore, it is judged that the magnetic phase for samples () and () is γ-Fe₂O₃, rather than Fe₃O₄ or mixed phase of both γ-Fe₂O₃ and Fe₃O₄.

Table 1: Atomic percentages () determined from EDS measurements performed on samples () and ().

Sample ()
60.48
37.93
1.59

Sample ()
62.35
32.35

3.93
1.37

Table 2: Binding energies (eV) of elements, determined from XPS measurements performed on samples () and ().

Fe2p3/2
O1s
Cl2p3/2

Sample ()
710.81
530.19
198.84

Fe₂O₃
710.9
530.2

Fe₃O₄
710.8
530.1

FeCl₃
711.3

199

Fe2p3/2
O1s
S2p3/2
Mg1s

Sample ()
711.41
530.40 (P1);
531.65 (P2)
168.99
1304.92

Fe₂O₃
710.9
530.2

Fe₃O₄
710.8
530.1

Fe₂(SO₄)₃
711.05

531.6
169.1

MgSO₄

?
168.6
?

Note: the standard data are from the NIST online database for XPS at http://www.nist.gov; there are no O1s and Mg1s binding energies for MgSO₄.

Figure 3: EDS spectra for samples () and ().

Figure 4: XPS spectra for samples () and ().

TEM observations revealed that sample () was identical to sample () and that it consisted of nearly spherical nanoparticles. Typical TEM images for both samples are shown in Figure 5. Statistical analysis [30] indicated that the diameter of the nanoparticles fitted a lognormal distribution. The median diameters () for samples () and () were 10.55 and 13.16 nm, respectively, and the associated standard deviation values (, where is the geometry deviation) were 0.37 and 0.31, respectively.

Figure 5: Typical TEM images for samples () and ().

3.2. Discussion

Experimental XRD and magnetization curve measurements indicated that the products after treatment with an FeCl₃ solution were not ferromagnetic. The product after treatment with an FeSO₄ solution exhibited a magnetic transition, similar to that observed for the products generated after treatment with an FeCl₂ solution. These products mainly consisted of a ferrimagnetic γ-Fe₂O₃ phase. These results show that the magnetic transition was induced by Fe²⁺, rather than by the acid radical ions. Additionally, samples () and () contained FeCl₃·6H₂O and Fe₂(SO₄)₃·11H₂O, which, respectively, correspond to the ferrous salts FeCl₂ and FeSO₄ treatment solution. This observation suggests that the ferrous salts induced the transformation of FeOOH in the precursor into γ-Fe₂O₃ via dehydration, and this resulted in the simultaneous oxidation of Fe²⁺ to Fe³⁺. The results for sample () show that the ferric salt did not induce a transition, suggesting that the oxidization of the ferrous ions in the liquid phase was necessary for the dehydration of amorphous FeOOH to form magnetic phase. The experimental results for sample () show that the cuprous ions (Cu⁺), which may not have had the tendency to oxidize to cupric ions (Cu²⁺) in the liquid phase [31], did not cause FeOOH to form magnetic phase. This implies that the dehydrating action of the cuprous ions was weaker than that of the ferrous ions in the chemically induced transition in the liquid phase.

The experimental results also indicated that the products after treatment with an FeSO₄ solution contained MgSO₄, but the products after treatment with an FeCl₂ solution had no corresponding Mg-containing constituent. This result suggests that FeSO₄ in the treatment solution not only induced the transformation of FeOOH into γ-Fe₂O₃ via dehydration and then underwent oxidation into Fe₂(SO₄)₃, but also reacted with dissolved Mg(OH)₂, producing MgSO₄:

According to (3), MgSO₄ first adsorbed onto the γ-Fe₂O₃ crystallites, forming MgSO₄·5H₂O. Some Fe³⁺ and ions also adsorbed, forming Fe₂(SO₄)₃·11H₂O on the outermost layer. Thus, the solutions of ferrous salts with different acid radicals (e.g., FeCl₂ and FeSO₄) could induce the transformation of the FeOOH/Mg(OH)₂ precursor into a γ-Fe₂O₃ magnetic phase via dehydration. However, the coating on the γ-Fe₂O₃ crystallites varied when the treatment solution was changed. The results revealed that sample () contained γ-Fe₂O₃ and FeCl₃·6H₂O, and sample () contained γ-Fe₂O₃, MgSO₄·5H₂O, and Fe₂(SO₄)₃·11H₂O. A schematic diagram illustrating the formation of the nanoparticles using FeCl₂ and FeSO₄ solutions is shown in Figure 6. As the magnetic nanoparticles have surface heterolayers that are different from the magnetic core, the magnetic core spins close to surface can be pinned by the layer, and the pinning would cause an unusually large coercivity [32, 33]. So, such γ-Fe₂O₃ based magnetic nanoparticles appeared to be apparently ferromagnetic due to surface pinning rather than shape effects [34].

Figure 6: Schematic diagram of the formation of magnetic nanoparticles using FeCl₂ and FeSO₄ solutions.

Because the metal salts were paramagnetic, the difference in the apparent magnetization of samples () and () depended on the γ-Fe₂O₃ content. For sample (), the molar percentages of γ-Fe₂O₃ and FeCl₃·6H₂O ( and , resp.) could be described as follows:

where and are the atomic percentages of Fe and Cl in sample (), respectively. For sample (), the molar percentages of γ-Fe₂O₃, MgSO₄·5H₂O, and Fe₂(SO₄)₃·11H₂O (, , and , resp.) could be described as follows:

where , , and are the atomic percentages of Fe, Mg, and S in sample (), respectively. Thus, the molar percentages of each phase () in samples () and () could be calculated from the values, which were measured using EDS, and are listed in Table 3. The mass percentages of each phase () in a sample were deduced using the following expression:

where is the molar weight of the th phase. Accordingly, the mass percentage of each phase was calculated for samples () and () from the molar percentages () and molar weights of γ-Fe₂O₃, FeCl₃·6H₂O, MgSO₄·5H₂O, and Fe₂(SO₄)₃·11H₂O. The mass percentage values are listed in Table 3. Table 3 indicates that the main species in samples () and () was γ-Fe₂O₃. The values for samples () and () could therefore be expressed as

where is the mass percentage of the γ-Fe₂O₃ phase and is the specific saturation magnetization of the γ-Fe₂O₃ phase. For samples () and (), their can be regarded as same since the γ-Fe₂O₃ phase resulted from the same FeOOH phase. Thus, the ratio of the values for samples () and () was proportional to the mass fraction of γ-Fe₂O₃. From the experimental results for the magnetization, we found that the ratio of the values for samples () and () was 0.73, which agreed with the ratio of the mass percentages of the γ-Fe₂O₃ phase (0.79). As a consequence, the mass percentage was available.

Table 3: Molar and mass percentages of phases in samples () and ().

Molar percentage ()
Mass percentage ()

γ-Fe₂O₃/FeCl₃
-Fe₂O₃/MgSO₄/Fe₂(SO₄)₃
-Fe₂O₃/FeCl₃⋅6H₂O
-Fe₂O₃/MgSO₄⋅5H₂O/Fe₂(SO₄)₃⋅11H₂O

Sample (0)
97.24/2.76

95.42/4.58

Sample ()

87.34/7.81/4.85

75.44/8.87/15.69

The volume percentage of each phase of the samples () could be obtained from the value:

where is the density of the phase. The values for γ-Fe₂O₃, FeCl₃·6H₂O, MgSO₄·5H₂O, and Fe₂(SO₄)₃·11H₂O were 4.90, 1.844, 1.896, and 2.14 g/cm³, respectively. The values calculated for are listed in Table 4.

Table 4: Volume percentages of phases () in samples () and ().

γ-Fe₂O₃/FeCl₃⋅6H₂O
γ-Fe₂O₃/MgSO₄⋅5H₂O/Fe₂(SO₄)₃⋅11H₂O

Sample (0)
88.69/11.31

Sample ()

56.18/17.07/26.75

Because the particles in samples () and () were nearly spherical, the ratio of the average particle volume in sample () () to the average particle volume in sample () () could be described as follows:

where and are the diameters corresponding to the average volumes of the particles in samples () and (), respectively. could be calculated directly from the size distribution parameters obtained using TEM by using the equation [30]. Accordingly, a value of 0.62 was obtained. Additionally, the average volume of the γ-Fe₂O₃ based nanoparticles, which contained many phases, (), can be expressed as , where is the average volume of the γ-Fe₂O₃ phase and is the volume percentage of the γ-Fe₂O₃ phase. Because the γ-Fe₂O₃ phase was produced from FeOOH, the values for samples () and () were the same. Therefore, the ratio of to could be described by ; that is,

where and are the volume percentages of the γ-Fe₂O₃ phase in samples () and (), respectively. Thus, the value obtained from the volume percentages was 0.63, which agreed with the value of (0.62) and confirmed the validity of both the coating model of the nanoparticle structure and the volume percentage.

4. Conclusions

Metal ions in the treatment solution play a key role in the magnetic transition during the preparation of magnetic nanoparticles via the chemically induced transition of FeOOH/Mg(OH)₂. No magnetic transition occurred when FeCl₃ and CuCl were used as treatment solutions; in contrast, the product obtained using treatment with an FeSO₄ solution, which is similar to that obtained using an FeCl₂ solution, showed ferromagnetic behavior. The magnetic phase of the two products was γ-Fe₂O₃. Experimental results revealed FeCl₃ and Fe₂(SO₄)₃ in the products after treatment with FeCl₂ and FeSO₄ solutions, respectively. Thus, Fe²⁺, which likely has a stronger dehydrating ability than the cuprous ion Cu⁺, might have undergone oxidation to Fe³⁺, thereby inducing a magnetic transition via dehydration. Treatment with an FeSO₄ solution resulted in the formation of MgSO₄ on the γ-Fe₂O₃ crystallites (the binding energy of Mg1s is ~1304.9 eV), whereas no Mg-containing compound formed in the product of the treatment using an FeCl₂ solution. This shows that the nonmagnetic coating on the magnetic γ-Fe₂O₃ crystallites varied with changes in the acid radical ions in the treatment solution. Treatment with an FeSO₄ solution led to a higher content of the nonmagnetic phase in the product, and thus weaker magnetization, despite the fact that these particles were larger than those formed after treatment with an FeCl₂ solution. Due to the surface pinned effect, such γ-Fe₂O₃ based magnetic nanoparticles, which were produced via the chemically induced transition, exhibited apparently ferromagnetism.

Here, we demonstrated the use of an FeOOH/Mg(OH)₂ precursor and a ferrous salt treatment solution (as FeCl₂ solution or FeSO₄ solution) as a simple and effective method for the preparation of γ-Fe₂O₃-based magnetic nanoparticles. Obviously, the alkali-oxide FeOOH dehydrating into γ-Fe₂O₃ was induced with Fe²⁺ in ferrous salt solution transforming into Fe³⁺. For the preparation of magnetic nanoparticles via chemically induced transition (CIT) method, the relation between acting energy of the alkali-oxide dehydrating and oxidation of the ferrous ions is interesting, and this mechanism will be further investigated in future work.

Conflict of Interests

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.

Acknowledgments

Financial support for this work was provided by the Innovation Foundation Project of Southwest University, China (no. 1318001), and the National Science Foundation of China (no. 11074205).

References

D. S. Mathew and R.-S. Juang, “An overview of the structure and magnetism of spinel ferrite nanoparticles and their synthesis in microemulsions,” Chemical Engineering Journal, vol. 129, no. 1–3, pp. 51–65, 2007.

M. A. Willard, L. K. Kurihara, E. E. Carpenter, S. Calvin, and V. G. Harris, “Chemically prepared magnetic nanoparticles,” International Materials Reviews, vol. 49, no. 3-4, pp. 125–170, 2004.

J. Noguésa, J. Sorta, V. Langlaisb et al., “Exchange bias in nanostructures,” Physics Reports, vol. 422, pp. 65–117, 2005.

A. S. Teja and P.-Y. Koh, “Synthesis, properties, and applications of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles,” Progress in Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials, vol. 55, no. 1-2, pp. 22–45, 2009.

B. H. Kim, M. J. Hackett, J. Park, and T. Hyeon, “Synthesis, characterization, and application of ultrasmall nanoparticles,” Chemistry of Materials, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 59–71, 2014.

C. T. Yavuz, J. T. Mayo, W. W. Yu et al., “Low-field magnetic separation of monodisperse Fe₃O₄ nanocrystals,” Science, vol. 314, no. 5801, pp. 964–967, 2006.

D. S. Toledano and V. E. Henrich, “Kinetics of SO₂ adsorption on photoexcited α-Fe₂O₃,” Journal of Physical Chemistry B, vol. 105, no. 18, pp. 3872–3877, 2001.

C. C. Berry and A. S. G. Curtis, “Functionalisation of magnetic nanoparticles for applications in biomedicine,” Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, vol. 36, no. 13, pp. R198–R206, 2003.

J. Li, X. Y. Qiu, Y. Q. Lin, L. L. Chen, X. D. Liu, and D. C. Li, “Large magneto-optical birefringence of colloidal suspensions of α-FeOOH goethite nanocrystallites,” Chemical Physics Letters, vol. 590, pp. 165–168, 2013.

X. Song and J.-F. Boily, “Competitive ligand exchange on akaganéite surfaces enriches bulk chloride loadings,” Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, vol. 376, no. 1, pp. 331–333, 2012.

S. Yu and C. M. Chow, “Carboxyl group (-CO₂H) functionalized ferrimagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles for potential bio-applications,” Journal of Materials Chemistry, vol. 14, no. 18, pp. 2781–2786, 2004.

D. Y. Szabó and D. Vollath, “Nanocomposites from coated nanoparticles,” Advanced Materials, vol. 11, no. 15, pp. 1313–1316, 1999.

B. R. V. Narasimhan, S. Prabhakar, P. Manohar, and F. D. Gnanam, “Synthesis of gamma ferric oxide by direct thermal decomposition of ferrous carbonate,” Materials Letters, vol. 52, no. 4-5, pp. 295–300, 2002.

T. Hyeon, S. S. Lee, J. Park, Y. Chung, and H. B. Na, “Synthesis of highly crystalline and monodisperse maghemite nanocrystallites without a size-selection process,” Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 123, no. 51, pp. 12798–12801, 2001.

K. V. P. M. Shafi, A. Ulman, X. Yan et al., “Sonochemical synthesis of functionalized amorphous iron oxide nanoparticles,” Langmuir, vol. 17, no. 16, pp. 5093–5097, 2001.

T. Nakanishi, H. Iida, and T. Osaka, “Preparation of iron oxide nanoparticles via successive reduction-oxidation in reverse micelles,” Chemistry Letters, vol. 32, no. 12, pp. 1166–1167, 2003.

V. Sreeja and P. A. Joy, “Microwave-hydrothermal synthesis of γ-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles and their magnetic properties,” Materials Research Bulletin, vol. 42, no. 8, pp. 1570–1576, 2007.

A. Rounanet, H. Solmon, G. Pichelin, C. Roucau, F. Sibieude, and C. Monty, “Synthesis by vaporization-condensation and characterization of γ-Fe₂O₃, In₂O₃, SnO₂, ZnO and Zr1−xYxO2−δ nanophases,” Nanostructured Materials, vol. 6, no. 1–4, pp. 283–286, 1995.

L. Casas, A. Roig, E. Molins, J. M. Grenèche, J. Asenjo, and J. Tejada, “Iron oxide nanoparticles hosted in silica aerogels,” Applied Physics A, vol. 74, no. 5, pp. 591–597, 2002.

B. L. Cushing, V. L. Kolesnichenko, and C. J. O'Connor, “Recent advances in the liquid-phase syntheses of inorganic nanoparticles,” Chemical Reviews, vol. 104, no. 9, pp. 3893–3946, 2004.

J. Li, Y. Q. Lin, X. D. Liu et al., “The study of transition on NiFe₂O₄ nanoparticles prepared by co-precipitation/calcination,” Phase Transitions, vol. 84, no. 1, pp. 49–57, 2011.

S. Asuha, S. Zhao, H. Y. Wu, L. Song, and O. Tegus, “One step synthesis of maghemite nanoparticles by direct thermal decomposition of Fe-urea complex and their properties,” Journal of Alloys and Compounds, vol. 472, no. 1-2, pp. L23–L25, 2009.

B. Wen, J. Li, Y. Lin et al., “A novel preparation method for γ-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles and their characterization,” Materials Chemistry and Physics, vol. 128, no. 1-2, pp. 35–38, 2011.

J. Fu, L. H. Lin, and J. Li, A Novel Preparation Method for Magnetic Nanoparticles and Their Characterization, FMTIF, Beijing, China, 2011.

L. L. Chen, J. Li, Y. Q. Lin et al., “Preparation of γ-Fe₂O₃/ZnFe₂O₄ nanoparticles by enhancement of surface modification with NaOH,” Chemistry Central Journal, vol. 8, article 40, 2014.

R. Arulmurugan, G. Vaidyanathan, S. Sendhilnathan, and B. Jeyadevan, “Co-Zn ferrite nanoparticles for ferrofluid preparation: study on magnetic properties,” Physica B: Condensed Matter, vol. 363, no. 1–4, pp. 225–231, 2005.

R. Frison, G. Cernuto, A. Cervellino et al., “Magnetite-maghemite nanoparticles in the 5–15 nm range: correlating the core-shell composition and the surface structure to the magnetic properties. A total scattering study,” Chemistry of Materials, vol. 25, no. 23, pp. 4820–4827, 2013.

S. Laurent, D. Forge, M. Port et al., “Magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles: synthesis, stabilization, vectorization, physicochemical characterizations, and biological applications,” Chemical Reviews, vol. 108, no. 6, pp. 2064–2110, 2008.

J. Li, X. Y. Qiu, Y. Q. Lin, X. D. Liu, R. L. Gao, and A. R. Wang, “A study of modified Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles for the synthesis of ionic ferrofluids,” Applied Surface Science, vol. 256, no. 23, pp. 6977–6981, 2010.

C. G. Granqvist and R. A. Buhrman, “Ultrafine metal particles,” Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 2200–2219, 1976.

Y. Q. Lin, H. Mao, and J. Li, “The solution dependence of Cu modification during the synthesis of γ-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles,” Key Engineering Materials, vol. 680, pp. 261–266, 2016.

M. Blanco-Mantecón and K. O'Grady, “Interaction and size effects in magnetic nanoparticles,” Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, vol. 296, no. 2, pp. 124–133, 2006.

Q. A. Pankhurst, Á. Y. Martínez, and L. Fernández Barquín, “Interfacial exchange pinning in amorphous iron-boron nanoparticles,” Physical Review B, vol. 69, Article ID 212401, 2004.

X. M. Gong, J. Li, Y. Q. Lin et al., “Formation of highly crystalline maghemite nanoparticles from ferrihydrite in the liquid phase,” Chinese Science Bulletin, vol. 59, no. 29-30, pp. 3904–3911, 2014.