Investigation of Magnetic Properties and Mechanical Responses on Hydrogel-TMAH-Magnetite

Abstract

Hydrogel-TMAH-Magnetite (ferrogel) was fabricated by using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel and magnetite fluids with tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) surfactant. Iron sand as the raw material was used to synthesize magnetite nanoparticles by co-precipitation method. Magnetite nanoparticles and ferrogel were characterized using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) to determine the content of elements in it. To know the functional group network of magnetite nanoparticles, magnetite enclosed with TMAH and ferrogel; we investigated using Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR). Meanwhile, the magnetic properties of the hydrogel-TMAH-magnetite were measured by using Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM). Furthermore, the composition analysis of the ferrogels using FTIR showed that all the synthesis materials were inside the ferrogels. The saturation magnetization of the hydrogel-TMAH-magnetite with a composition of TMAH 1.2 mL (3.95 emu•g-1) was higher than that of TMAH 0.8 mL (0.85 emu•g-1). It exhibited that the composition of TMAH 1.2 mL was an optimum composition to produce nanoparticle magnetite-TMAH having a stable and high performance. Furthermore, the magneto-elasticity of hydrogel-TMAH-magnetite in the effect of the external magnetic field had a good response. However, the composition of the nanoparticle magnetite-TMAH in the ferrogel did not significantly affect the elongation of the gel.