Template-free synthesis and magnetic properties of hollow Cu/Fe3O4 heterodimer sub-microcactus

Abstract

Hollow Cu/Fe₃O₄ heterodimer sub-microcactus has been successfully fabricated by a facile one-pot solvothermal method without any templates, which was confirmed by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) and a magnetic property measurement system. Batch experiments showed that the morphology is strongly influenced by the content of Cu in the Cu/Fe₃O₄ samples. A mechanism for the formation of the hollow heterodimer sub-microcactus by a cooperation of oriented attachment and localized Ostwald ripening processes has been proposed based on the observations of time-dependent experiments. Magnetic measurements illustrated that the prepared hollow heterodimer sub-microcactus are superparamagnetic magnets with a saturation magnetization of 65.2 emu g⁻¹. The synthesized hollow Cu/Fe₃O₄ heterodimer sub-microcactus may have important applications in catalysis, energy storage and biomedical applications.