Synthesis and Characterization of Polymer-Based Magnetic Nanocomposite with Uniformly Distributed Hematite Nanoparticles on the Surface of Polystyrene Aromatic Compound

Abstract

Nanosize hematite (α-Fe2O3) particles were synthesized by the Sol-gel method and were used for preparing polystyrene@α-Fe2O3 (PS@α-Fe2O3) nanocomposites via microemulsion polymerization by using ammonium proxidisulfate (APS) as an initiator. The obtained nanocomposites were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrophotometer, thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA), and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), respectively. TEM analysis showed that the average particle size of the α-Fe2O3 and PS@α-Fe2O3 nanocomposites synthesized were about 25 and 80 nm, respectively. The polystyrene microsphere was uniformly coated by α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles and the shell-thickness of the core-shell hybrid particles was controlled by the feed of α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles during the polymerization.