Preparation of Fe ₃O ₄/P(GMA-co-EGDMA) magnetic composite microspheres with high specific surface area by deposition of porous template

A simple method for preparation of Fe ₃O ₄/P(GMA-co-EGDMA) magnetic composite microspheres using microporous P(GMA-co-EGDMA) microspheres copolymerized with glycidyl methacrylate(GMA) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate(EGDMA) as template is reported in this paper. The preparation process included soaking of ferrous ion and ferric ion and coprecipitation in the presence of OH ^-. The influences of soaking temperature, soaking time, coprecipitation temperature and deposition times on magnetic content of magnetic composite microspheres were studied. The optimum preparation process of microporous Fe ₃O ₄/P(GMA-co-EGDMA) magnetic composite microspheres was as follows: microporous P(GMA-co-EGDMA) microspheres were soaked at 50°C for 4 h, coprecipitation temperature and time were 70°C and 1 h respectively. The magnetic content of magnetic composite microspheres was 45.24% when the deposition process was repeated 4 times. The morphology, magnetic properties, magnetic content, pore performance and particle size distribution of Fe ₃O ₄/P(GMA-co-EGDMA) were determined by SEM, TGA, XRD, mercury porosimeter and laser particle sizer. It was found that the range of particle size of Fe ₃O ₄/P(GMA-co-EGDMA) was 100~200 μm and average particle size was 162 μm, specific saturation magnetization was 10.92 emu·g ^-1, average pore diameter and specific surface area were 60 nm and 116 m ²·g ^-1 respectively.