Investigation of Magnetic Properties of PS LATEX/MNPs Composite Films

Abstract

In the work reported here the magnetic properties of nanocomposite system composed of polystyrene (PS) latex polymer and superparamagnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), is presented. A series of mixtures were prepared by mixing of PS latex dispersion with different amount of MNPs and drop casting on glass substrates at room temperature. After drying, film samples were annealed at 250 °C for 10 min. Morphological changes of the films were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and magnetic properties studied using vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) as a function of MNPs content. The saturation magnetization (Ms) of composites increased as MNPs content increased. Ms showed two maxima at 50 wt% and 85 wt% MNPs contents with Ms values of 0.014 emu and 0.020 emu, respectively. The morphological changes of PS/MNPs composite films were also found consistent with these results indicating that magnetic properties these composites can be readily tuned by varying MNPs content.