Synthesis of magnetic carbon sand

In this work, the magnetic carbon sand (MCS) have been successfully prepared by the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on sands using adamantane (C10H16) as a precursor. The MCS was obtained by the deposition of adamantane precursor on sand at 1050 °C. The magnetization of MCS has been measured by the vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) with applied magnetic field in the range between -15 and 15 kOe. From VSM results, the magnetic hysteresis loop is observed in MCSs indicating the ferromagnetic behavior without the presence of magnetic elements. The saturated magnetization has been observed as high as 72 m-emu/g at room temperature. From the Raman-spectroscopy measurement, the observed ferromagnetism in MCS may come from the unpaired electrons in carbon (i.e. dangling bond) resulted by calcining adamantane at high temperature. This finding suggests an inexpensive method for preparing magnetic particles which can be applied in broad applications such as bio-compatible drug delivery and large-scale magnetic shielding.