Development of superparamagnetic microparticles for biotechnological purposes.

Aqueous suspensions containing magnetic microparticles have been increasingly used in biosciences and biotechnology. This work describes an experimental procedure to produce superparamagnetic microparticles. The particles were prepared based on the coprecipitation of iron salts in alkaline medium. Afterwards, characterization was performed. Characterization data demonstrated that magnetite was the dominant phase in the analyzed sample, and 50% of them were in the size range of 0.5-5 microm. The results suggest that the experimental protocol provided a simple synthesis route to produce superparamagnetic microparticles. Such properties may be very useful for biotechnological purposes.