The Characterization and Thermal Investigation of Chitosan-Fe3O4 Nanoparticles Synthesized Via A Novel One-step Modifying Process

A novel modifying process was designed to prepare ultra small magnetic chitosan nanoparticles which exhibited unique thermal stability and decomposition mechanism. The chemical structures and physical properties of the prepared products were characterized using FTIR, TEM, XRD, TGA and DSC techniques. The results revealed that this approach eliminated the aggregation among nanoparticles. The magnetic chitosan particles were 10-15 nm in size with good dispersibility and new thermal property. To further study the decomposition process, the combined TGA-FTIR technique was used to the analysis of the evolution with the temperature of the gas products evolved in the degradation of the magnetic chitosan. The phenomena were observed directly from TGA-FTIR stack plots. From the measurements data, it suggested that the unusual thermal behavior of chitosan might be attributed to the additional bridging through metal oxide.