Synthesis of polyelectrolyte brushes on spherical magnetic polymer particles

Synthesis of polyelectrolyte brushes on magnetic polymer particles were carried out through a two steps. Firstly, the iron oxide particles (maghemite) were embedded in a hydroxyl modified polymer phase and in the second step, polyacrylic acid (PAA) brushes were synthesized on the surface of the particles by a grafting from method. The final particles were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Fourier transform infrared attenuated total reflection spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS). Experimental analysis confirmed that all the iron oxide particles were embedded in a polymer phase and the final particles have more than 82 % iron oxide content. According to magnetometry data, shape of the hysteresis loops evidence the ferromagnetic character of the particles. The DLS results show that the size of the particles is depend on ionic strengths and pH of dispersion medium.