One-Pot Synthesis of Hydrophilic Superparamagnetic Fe3O4/Poly(methyl methacrylate-acrylic acid) Composite Nanoparticles with High Magnetization

Uniform superparamagnetic Fe3O4/poly(methyl methacrylate-acrylic acid) (P(MMA-AA)) composite nanoparticles with high saturation magnetization and good hydrophilicity were successfully and directly synthesized via a facile one-pot miniemulsion polymerization approach. The mixture of the ferrofluids, MMA and AA monomers, surfactants and initiator was co-sonicated and emulsified to prepare stable miniemulsion for polymerization. The as-prepared products were characterized by SEM, TEM, FT-IR, XRD, TGA and VSM. The results of SEM indicated that the morphology of the Fe3O4/P(MMA-AA) composite nanoparticles all assumed near spherical geometry with diameters about 60 nm, 60 nm, and 100 nm respectively corresponding to the weight ratios of Fe3O4 to MMA and AA at 1:8, 1:4, and 1:2. The TEM images implied that the Fe3O4/P(MMA-AA) composite nanoparticles showed a perfect core shell structure with a polymeric shell of about 2 nm thickness and a core encapsulating uniform and close packed Fe3O4 nanoparticles. TGA and VSM showed that the Fe304/P(MMA-AA) composite nanoparticles with a maximum saturation magnetization up to 45 emu g(-1) corresponding to the magnetite content of 78% exhibited superparamagntism. The hydrophilic modification and the high saturation magnetization impart a promising potential for biomedical applications to the as-synthesized composite nanoparticles.