Preparation of iron boride-silica core-shell nanoparticles with soft ferromagnetic properties

A one-pot aqueous chemical synthesis for silica-passivated ferromagnetic nanoparticles is presented. The average size of these particles is 84 +/- 20 nm. The x-ray and electron diffraction experiments revealed that the nanoparticles are mainly composed of polycrystalline iron boride. The broad x- ray diffraction peak leads to an average crystallite size of 1.8 nm, which is much smaller than the overall size of the particles, and is consistent with the polycrystalline nature of the samples. Mossbauer spectroscopy and magnetization experiments were used to establish the room temperature magnetic properties as well as the chemical nature of the particles. Fe2B dominates the composition of the nanoparticles, having a hyperfine field broadly distributed in the 10-33 T range. Alpha iron, the second ferromagnetic material identified in the particles, amounts to 4.6% of the composition. Finally, a paramagnetic phase accounting for approximately 14.6% of the material of the particles was also detected. These nanoparticles contain a core with soft ferromagnetic properties surrounded by a passivating silica layer, and are suitable for magnetically targeted drug delivery and electromagnetic induction heating applications.