Polysaccharide-based hybrid nanostructures with tunable magnetic response

In this contribution, the development of polysaccharide-based magnetic hybrid nanostructures (HNs) is reported. A one-pot soft-chemistry approach was followed in order to obtain HNs composed by cobalt-ferrite nanoparticles (CoSNPs) that were assembled into carboxymethyl-cellulose (CMC) templates, whose size and morphology are controllable. The synthesized HNs were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and magnetic measuring. The experimental evidence indicates that both size and morphology of the CMC templates varies according to the CoSNPs weight content in the HNs, as well as to the hydration time of the CMC used as template. Moreover, these morphological features modify the hysteretic characteristics and thermal relaxation of the CoSNPs assemblies, due to the change on the mean distance among particles in the CMC templates. Thus, the magnetic response of these HNs can be tuned from the control of the morphology of the CMC templates where CoSNPs are assembled.