A Herbal Extract for the Synthesis of Magnetite Nanoparticles

Recently, great efforts were made to use green and environmentally friendly methods for the synthesis of nano size materials. These efforts involve the use of plant or fruit extracts as surfactants. Plant parts such as leaf, root, latex, seed, and stem are being used for metal nanoparticles synthesis. The greener environmentally friendly processes in chemistry and chemical technology are becoming increasingly popular. The techniques for obtaining nanoparticles using naturally occurring reagents such as plant extract, could be considered attractive for nanotechnology. Magnetic nanoparticles have attracted a great attention due to their unique physical, chemical and structural properties when the particle sizes approach to nanoscale. It is these unique features that endow magnetic nanoparticles with wide applications, such as magnetic storage, catalysis, microwave absorption, magnetic resonance contrast, cancer hyperthermia, cell separation and drug delivery. In this work, we present a novel green and cost-efficient method for synthesis of superparamagnetic magnetite nanoparticles with an average diameter of 30-46 nm by coprecipitation method and using Acanthophyllum Bracteatum extract as surfactant. We used soxhlet extractor as extraction technique. The sample was characterized by vibrating sample magnetization (VSM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).