Low temperature synthesis of Fe3O4 nanocrystals by hydrothermal decomposition of a metallorganic molecular precursor

Pure Fe3O4 nanocrystals with different sizes were synthesized via hydrothermal processing of an easily obtained, air-stable metallorganic molecular precursor (ferric acetylacetonate: Fe-(ACAC)3) in 20 vol.% hydrazine hydrate aqueous solution at 80–160 °C for 0.5–12 h. The phase, purity and size of the resultant products were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and transmission electronic microscope (TEM), and the possible formation mechanism of Fe3O4 was tentatively proposed. The magnetic properties of the products have also been studied.