A facile two-step hydrothermal route for the synthesis of γ-Fe2O3 nanocrystals and their magnetic properties

• DOI: 10.1007/s10853-007-1887-0
• Publication Date: 2007-07-26T12:33:59Z
• Authors: Hongliang Zhu; Deren Yang; Luming Zhu; Hong Yang; Dalai Jin; Kuihong Yao
• Keywords: 01 natural sciences; 7. Clean energy; 0104 chemical sciences

This paper proposes a facile two-step hydrothermal route for the synthesis of maghemite (γ-Fe2O3) nanocrystals. The synthesis route included two steps: (i) hydrothermal synthesis of Fe3O4 nanocrystals, and (ii) hydrothermal oxidation of the Fe3O4 nanocrystals to their γ-Fe2O3 counterpart. Phase transition from γ-Fe2O3 to hematite was studied by in situ XRD; the γ-Fe2O3 nanocrystals exhibited enhanced phase transition temperature (>600 °C). The magnetization curves revealed that the γ-Fe2O3 nanocrystals showed ferromagnetic behavior with high saturation magnetization of 68 emu/g at room temperature.