Magnetic composite nanofibers fabricated by electrospinning of Fe₃O₄/gelatin aqueous solutions

Graphical abstract: Superparamagnetic Fe₃O₄/GE composite nanofibers with saturation magnetization of 12.87 emμ g⁻¹ were prepared from gelatin aqueous solution at an elevated temperature by electrospinning. - Highlights: • Electrospinning GE aqueous solution at higher temperature. • Presenting a simple and effective technique, combining wet blending with high temperature electrospinning to prepare magnetic composite nanofibers. • Developing composite nanofibers with higher superparamagnetic properties is expected to be useful in application for the biomedical field. - Abstract: We have fabricated magnetic composite nanofibers containing superparamagnetic Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles by the electrospinning method. Highly dispersed Fe₃O₄ magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized by one-step co-precipitation of Fe²⁺/Fe³⁺ under an alkaline condition with 4 wt% poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) aqueous solution as the stabilizer. Gelatin (GE) was used as a polymeric matrix for fabricating the nanocomposites. The prepared Fe₃O₄/GE composite nanofibers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. These composite nanofibers show uniform and continuous morphology with the Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles embedded in the nanofibers. By studying the magnetic properties of the Fe₃O₄/GE composite nanofibers, we confirm that the composite nanofibers possess superparamagnetic properties with a high saturated magnetization (M_s = 12.87 emμ g⁻¹) at room temperature. The features of this approach for getting one-dimensional magnetic nanostructure are its simplicity, effectiveness and safety. The Fe₃O₄/GE nanofibers with superparamagnetic properties would be potentially applied in biomedical field