Monodisperse iron oxides magnetite

Monodisperse particles present the advantage of uniform active site distribution and can be considered as models for heterogeneous catalytic reactions. Monodisperse metals, metal oxides or metal borides can now be easily obtained using microemulsions, vesicles, polymers or normal micelles (refs. 1-4). Microemulsions were used to obtain monodisperse particles of platinum (refs. 5-7), palladium (refs. 5,6), rhodium (refs. 5,6), iridium (ref. 5) and gold (ref. 8) by reducing the precursor metal ions with hydrogen, hydrazine, sodium borohydride or solvated electrons. Monodisperse nickel boride (refs. 1,9-12), cobalt boride (refs. 1,10,13-17), nickel-cobalt boride (refs. 1,10,15-17), and mixtures of iron boride and iron oxides (refs. 1,18) were prepared by sodium borohydride reduction of the precursor metal ions. Iron oxides (ref. 19), magnetite (ref. 20), calcium carbonate (ref. 21) and silver chloride (ref. 22) were obtained by precipitation reactions. 

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