Ultrasound-assisted synthesis and characterization of magnetite nanoparticles and poly(methyl methacrylate)/magnetite nanocomposites

Maneesh Kumar Poddar; Mohammad Arjmand; Uttandaraman Sundararaj; Vijayanand S Moholkar

doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2017.12.035

Ultrasound-assisted synthesis and characterization of magnetite nanoparticles and poly(methyl methacrylate)/magnetite nanocomposites

Ultrason Sonochem. 2018 May:43:38-51. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2017.12.035. Epub 2017 Dec 21.

Authors

Maneesh Kumar Poddar¹, Mohammad Arjmand², Uttandaraman Sundararaj², Vijayanand S Moholkar³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781 039, Assam, India.
² Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr NW Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781 039, Assam, India. Electronic address: vmoholkar@iitg.ernet.in.

PMID: 29555287
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2017.12.035

Abstract

Poly(methyl methacrylate)/magnetite (PMMA/Fe₃O₄) nanocomposites were prepared with a two-step technique involving sonication. Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles were synthesized by ultrasound-assisted co-precipitation, and then PMMA/Fe₃O₄ (1-5 wt%) nanocomposites were synthesized via ultrasound-assisted in-situ emulsion polymerization. Best physical properties of the nanocomposites for different Fe₃O₄ loadings were: tensile strength (2 wt%) = 40.28 MPa, Young's modulus (2 wt%) = 2.4 GPa, percentage elongation (2 wt%) = 2.24%, glass transition temperature (2 wt%) = 122.5 °C, thermal inflection point (2 wt%) = 383 °C, electrical conductivity (5 wt%) = 2.0 × 10^-13 S/cm, coercivity = 59.85 Oe (2 wt%), magnetic saturation (5 wt%) = 5.12 emu/g, magnetic remanence (5 wt%) = 0.56 emu/g, and electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (5 wt%) = 1.45 dB. This unique combination of physical properties at relatively low Fe₃O₄ loading is attributed to ultrasound-mediated uniform dispersion of the nanofiller in the polymer matrix.

Keywords: Electrical conductivity; Emulsion polymerization; Magnetite; Nanocomposites; PMMA; Ultrasound.