Mössbauer and Raman spectroscopic study of oxidation and reduction of iron oxide nanoparticles promoted by various carboxylic acid layers

The effect of coating with nine different carboxylic acids (glycolic, propionic, lactic, malic, tartaric, citric, mandelic, caproic and caprylic) on nanostructured magnetite (D ~ 10 nm) was studied by Raman and photoacoustic, magnetic and 57Fe Mössbauer measurements. Mössbauer spectra of frozen suspensions showed dominantly magnetically split envelopes at lower temperatures, which were evaluated by hyperfine field distribution method. Mössbauer and Raman spectroscopy indicated similar variation of relative occurrence of magnetite and maghemite phases. These results are discussed on the basis of the hypothesis that different carboxylic acids can promote either the oxidation or reduction of iron oxide nanoparticles.