Synthesis of highly magnetic iron oxide nanomaterials from waste iron by one-step approach

Abstract

One of the biggest challenges of present-day scientific research is the disposal and/or recycling of environmental waste. In this work, scrap iron obtained from a blacksmith’s backyard was used as precursor for the synthesis of magnetic nanomaterials. Highly magnetic iron based nanomaterials were synthesized in presence of urea and alkali by carefully tuning the precursor concentration and temperature. Characterization of the synthesized nanomaterials was done by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Mössbauer spectroscopy. The magnetic behavior of the synthesized iron-oxide nanoparticles was studied using a squid magnetometer. The net impact of the work reported herein is based on the principle of “Wealth-from-Waste”. Waste scrap iron was converted by a scalable synthetic strategy to useful nanomaterials with potential magnetic applications.