Size-Controlled Synthesis of Iron and Iron Oxide Nanoparticles by the Rapid Inductive Heating Method.

Inductive heating synthesis is an emerging technique with the potential to displace the hot-injection synthesis method to prepare colloidal particles very rapidly with a narrow size distribution, controlled size, and high crystallinity. In this work, the inductive heating synthesis is applied to produce a short-temperature jump to mimic conditions like the hot-injection method to prepare traditional iron and iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) in the 3-11 nm size range within various solvents, precursors, and reaction time conditions. Moreover, this inductive heating technique can be used under unique experimental conditions not available for hot-injection reactions. These conditions include the use of very high initial monomer concentrations. Considering benefits over conventional methods, the inductive heating technique has the potential to provide an industrial level scale-up synthesis. The magnetization of these particles is consistent with the magnetization of the particles from the literature.