One-pot method fabrication of superparamagnetic sulfonated polystyrene/Fe3O4/graphene oxide micro-nano composites

In this work, using monodispersed sulfonated polystyrene (SPS) microspheres as carriers, FeCl3·6H2O and FeSO4·7H2O as precursors, NaOH as precipitant in the presence of graphene oxide (GO), SPS/Fe3O4/GO micro-nano composites were fabricated by a simple one-pot method employing an inverse coprecipitation in-situ compound technology. The SPS/Fe3O4/GO micro-nano composites were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray powder diffractometer, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms and vibrating sample magnetometer. The results show that the SPS/Fe3O4/GO micro-nano composites were fabricated with SPS as core, GO and Fe3O4 nanoparticles as shell. The SPS/Fe3O4/GO micro-nano composites had larger BET specific surface area, average pore width and micropore volume than the pure SPS microspheres. Meanwhile, the SPS/Fe3O4/GO micro-nano composites had superparamagnetism and hydrophilic property. The saturation magnetization (Ms) of the SPS/Fe3O4/GO micro-nano composites was 10.86 emu/g, which was enough to ensure the convenient magnetic separation of solid and liquid phase.