Iron carbide nanoplatelets: colloidal synthesis and characterization

Frank M Abel; Shirin Pourmiri; Georgia Basina; Vasileios Tzitzios; Eamonn Devlin; George C Hadjipanayis

doi:10.1039/c9na00526a

Iron carbide nanoplatelets: colloidal synthesis and characterization

Nanoscale Adv. 2019 Oct 7;1(11):4476-4480. doi: 10.1039/c9na00526a. eCollection 2019 Nov 5.

Authors

Frank M Abel¹, Shirin Pourmiri¹, Georgia Basina², Vasileios Tzitzios^{2

3}, Eamonn Devlin³, George C Hadjipanayis¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware Newark DE 19716 USA fabel@udel.edu frank.m.abeliii@gmail.com.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Petroleum Institute P. O. Box 2533 Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates.
³ Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, NCSR Demokritos Athens 15310 Greece v.tzitzios@inn.demokritos.gr.

Abstract

Iron carbide nanoplatelets with an orthorhombic Fe₃C structure were synthesized following a simple liquid chemical approach. The formation of the carbide phases was shown to depend on the presence of a long chain diol and the reaction temperature. Confirmation of the iron carbide phases and structural characterization was made by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Mössbauer spectroscopy. Particle morphology was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and HR-TEM and the magnetic properties were measured with magnetometry (VSM). The sample with the Fe₃C phase shows a ferromagnetic behavior with a magnetization of 139 emu g^-1 under a 30 kOe applied field. The simple methodology presented here for producing iron carbide nanoplatelets has promising application in the biomedical and catalyst industries.