Effect of presence of an acid catalyst on structure and properties of iron-doped siloxane-polyoxyethylene nanocomposites prepared by sol–gel

In this work we investigate the effect of hydrochloric acid (HCl) addition on the structure and thermal and magnetic properties of iron-doped siloxane-polyoxyethylene (POE) hybrids prepared by the sol–gel route. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) results reveal the dominance of ferrihydrite nanoparticles and a mixture of this phase with FeCl 4 - species in the hybrid prepared without and with HCl, respectively. Thermal analysis reveals the existence of two crystalline polymeric phases in the hybrid prepared with HCl whereas hybrids prepared without HCl are amorphous. The 105 and 60 Å sized ferrihydrite nanoparticles were detected by SAXS analysis of the composite prepared without and with HCl, respectively. The magnetic results suggest that in both samples antiferromagnetic nanoparticles coexist with small clusters/isolated ions. In the sample without HCl addition, larger particles dominate the magnetic behavior, while the opposite occurs for the sample prepared using HCl catalyst.