In situ synthesis of the Fe3O4@poly(4-vinylpyridine)-block-polystyrene magnetic polymer nanocomposites via dispersion RAFT polymerization

This work presents a facile strategy for the generation of Fe 3 O 4 @poly(4-vinylpyridine)-block-polystyrene (Fe 3 O 4 @P4VP-b-PS) magnetic polymer nanocomposites. P4VP-b-PS nanoparticles prepared by dispersion RAFT polymerization of styrene in methanol/water in the presence of macro-P4VP chain transfer agent was employed as templates to grow Fe 3 O 4 on polymeric network templates. With the following addition of FeCl 3 into the above polymer colloids, pyridyl moieties in P4VP block of nanoparticles could further react with Fe 3+ through a coordination reaction to generate Fe 3+ @P4VP-b-PS nanoparticles. After the subsequent addition of FeCl 2 and NH 3 ⋅H 2 O, the co-precipitation reaction occurred on the surface of the polymeric nanoparticle to form Fe 3 O 4 @P4VP-b-PS magnetic polymer nanocomposites. Herein, FT-IR, XRD, TGA, XPS, TEM and VSM were applied to characterize the morphology, structure and magnetism performance of the synthesized magnetic polymeric nanocomposites.