The synthesis and characterisation of magnetic nanoparticles and their interaction with a zinc phthalocyanine

A variety of nanoparticles (NPs), including FePt nanoparticles with Fe as the shell (2) or Pt as the shell (3), Pt NPs (4), and FePd (5) were synthesised, characterised and their effect on a zinc phthalocyanine (1) tetra-substituted with a pyridyl-oxy substituent studied using UV/Vis and fluorescence spectroscopy (including time correlated single photon counting, TCSPC). The nanoparticles were characterised using a number of techniques including UV/Vis and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission (ICP-OES) spectroscopies, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. Nanocomposites (NCs, 6,7) where the ZnPc (1) was used as the stabiliser, instead of oleic acid and or oleylamine, were also synthesised and characterised.