One-step hydrothermal synthesis of magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles immobilized on polyamide fabric
Graphical abstract
Highlights
► We employed a facile and efficient process to immobilize the Fe3O4 nanoparticles on the surface of polyamide fiber. ► We fabricated the magnetic polyamide fabric. ► We characterized the fiber by using SEM, TEM, XRD, TG, DSC, VSM and XPS techniques. ► Magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles are grafted on the fiber surface. ► The modification method may be suitable for the potential applications.
Introduction
Magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticle has attracted significant attention in recent years not only because of its unique size and morphology dependent physical and chemical properties but also for its biocompatibility and remarkable magnetic properties [1]. It has a cubic inverse spinel structure with oxygen forming an fcc closed packing and Fe cations occupying interstitial tetrahedral sites and octahedral sites. The electrons can hop between Fe2+ and Fe3+ ions in the octahedral sites at room temperature, rendering Fe3O4 an important class of half-metallic materials [2]. Fe3O4 nanoparticle can be used to adsorb contaminants from aqueous or gaseous effluents. After adsorption, it can also be separated from the medium by a simple magnetic process [3]. It has been confirmed that the amount of the compounded magnetic particles depends on the composition conditions, such as Fe2+ concentration, temperature, aging time, and repeat cycles [4]. Owning to the large surface area-to-volume ratio and magnetic dipole-dipole attractions, Fe3O4 nanoparticles are liable to aggregate. The formation of a passive coating of inert materials e.g. inorganic oxides as well as organic polymers on the surfaces of magnetite nanoparticles could help to prevent their aggregation in dispersant and improve their chemical reactivity and stability [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. For instance, in order to minimize the particle size of magnetite, lactate ion was used as the coexisting anion in the hydrothermal synthesis process. The coexisting anions remarkably influenced both formation of crystalline nuclei and dispersion stabilization of formed precipitates [10].
Generally speaking, there are two approaches that can be adopted for producing magnetic fibers: lumen loading and in situ synthesis. For the lumen loading process, magnetite or maghemite particles can be introduced into the fiber's lumen while leaving the external surfaces free from filler to fabricate the magnetic paper [11], [12], [13], [14], [15]. For example, kenaf fibers were chosen for producing magnetic paper using a coprecipitation method with the presence of ferrous and ferric compounds because of its large lumen. The effects of temperature and degree of mixing on the magnetic particle size, degree of crystallinity, thermal stability, magnetic and physical properties of the magnetic paper were examined [16]. For the in situ synthesis process, magnetite nanoparticles can be precipitated in the presence of fibers and deposited into the fiber's lumen by oxidation of ferrous hydroxide with or without oxygen. It was found that the non-magnetic iron oxy-hydroxides would detrimentally affect the magnetic properties of the fiber [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28]. However, relatively little studies related to the fabrication of magnetic fabric is reported in the literature up to now.
Among different approaches to fabricate magnetic nanoparticles such as sonochemical synthesis, sol-gel reactions, and chemical solution, the hydrothermal process is the most convenient and cheapest one because of its unique advantages [29]. The resulting nanoparticles have the desired size and shape with homogeneity in composition as well as a high degree of crystallinity [30]. Its most important feature is that it favors a decrease in agglomeration among particles, narrow particle size distribution, phase homogeneity and controlled particle morphology [31].
In this paper, the hydrothermal method was employed to impart the polyamide fabric with magnetism, which was different from the lumen loading and in situ methods. Magnetite nanoparticles were successfully immobilized on the surface of polyamide fiber using ferric trichloride and ferrous chloride as the precursor, N,N-dimethyl formamide as the swelling agent and sodium dodecyl sulfate as the dispersant agent. The surface morphology, particle size, crystallinity, thermal stability, magnetic behavior and chemical structure of polyamide fabric before and after treatments were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetric (TG), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The abrasion resistance and tensile properties of the Fe3O4-coated fabric were also investigated. The surface coating approach used may be suitable for the potential applications, such as electromagnetic shielding, magnetographic printing, mechanical engineering and bioengineering [32].
Section snippets
Materials
The undyed plain woven polyamide 6 (PA6) fabric was used for immobilizing with the Fe3O4 nanoparticles, which was provided from Guangdong Xinhui Meida Nylon Co., Ltd. The linear densities of warps and wefts are identical 8 tex. The numbers of warps and wefts are 38 and 31 per centimeter, respectively. The chemicals were of reagent grade used without further purifications, and include ferric trichloride hexahydrate (FeCl3·6H2O), ferrous chloride tetrahydrate (FeCl2·4H2O), N,N-dimethyl formamide
SEM analysis
Fig. 1 shows the SEM images of the original and Fe3O4-coated PA6 fibers. As can be seen in Fig. 1(a), the surface of the original PA6 fiber is very smooth and clean. After treatments, the particles were successfully immobilized on the fiber surface. The size and distribution of the particles on the surface of fiber is more homogeneous for the hydrothermal synthesis sample. Some large particles in micron size are also observed because of the adhesion of agglomerated particles (Fig. 1(b)). From
Conclusions
In order to endow PA6 fabric with the magnetic property, magnetite nanoparticles were synthesized by the hydrothermal method, and simultaneously immobilized on the surface of PA6 fiber using ferric trichloride and ferrous chloride as the precursor, N,N-dimethyl formamide as the swelling agent and sodium dodecyl sulfate as the dispersant agent. The experiment showed that it was possible to fabricate the magnetic PA6 fabric by the hydrothermal method. SEM and TEM studies revealed that Fe3O4
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