Structure and Properties of Magnetic (Co, Fe, Fe3C and Ni) Carbon Beads

Nanoparticles exhibit unique physical properties due to the surface or quantum-size effects. Particular attention has been focused on magnetic nanoparticles and substantial progress has been done in this field. In this work magnetic composites, consisting of elementary metals or carbides nanoctystallites, stabilized in carbon matrix, were prepared by the procedure comprising formation of appropriate metal acrylamide complexes, followed by frontal polymerization and pyrolysis of the polymer at various temperatures. Application of frontal polymerization and further pyrolysis enables formation of composite beads consisting of Co, Fe, Fe3C or Ni nanocrystallites stabilized in carbon matrix. It was found that the lowest pyrolysis temperature, which enables the production of metallic nanocrystallites, was 673 K for Co and Ni, and 773 K for Fe. The magnetic properties of the beads, percentage of the metallic component, their composition and shape depended on the pyrolysis temperature. Extracts on the basis of composites containing Fe3C showed no cytotoxicity, whereas those containing Co and Ni exhibited negligible cytotoxicity up to concentrations of 6.25 mg/ml.