No abstract

Magnetic nanoparticles based on iron and its oxides are promising in various biomedical applications. Currently, as a rule, ferromagnetic iron oxide particles with a low specific magnetic moment are used for medical purposes. In the present work, a new method for the synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles based on the electric explosion of a Fe wire is proposed. When wires are dispersed by high current electric pulse in an inert atmosphere containing less than 5% oxygen, nanoparticles with a core-shell structure are formed, where the core is α-Fe and the shell is formed by a mixture of oxides Fe 3 O 4 and FeO. The oxygen concentration in the buffer gas has been found to determine the size of the resulting nanoparticles, their shape, and iron content. The iron oxide shell protects the iron core from the external environment, preventing the rapid dissolution of Fe containing in the nanoparticles, in contrast to nanoparticles obtained in argon atmosphere. The specific magnetic moment of nanoparticles, depending on the content of iron oxides, varies from 90 to 180 emu/g. Keywords Fe-Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles . Electrical explosion of a wire . Oxidation . Core-shell structures . Magnetic properties

Electrical explosion of aluminum wires has been shown to be a versatile method for the preparation of bimodal nano/micro powders. The energy input into the wire has been found to determine the relative content of fine and coarse particles in bimodal aluminum powders. The use of aluminum bimodal powders has been shown to be promising for the development of high flowability feedstocks for metal injection molding and material extrusion additive manufacturing.

The particle size distribution significantly affects the material properties of the additively manufactured parts. In this work, the influence of bimodal powder containing nano- and micro-scale particles on microstructure and materials properties is studied. Moreover, to study the effect of the protective atmosphere, the test samples were additively manufactured from 316L stainless steel powder in argon and nitrogen. The samples fabricated from the bimodal powder demonstrate a finer subgrain structure, regardless of protective atmospheres and an increase in the Vickers microhardness, which is in accordance with the Hall-Petch relation. The porosity analysis revealed the deterioration in the quality of as-built parts due to the poor powder flowability. The surface roughness of fabricated samples was the same regardless of the powder feedstock materials used and protective atmospheres. The results suggest that the improvement of mechanical properties is achieved by adding a nano-dispersed fraction, which dramatically increases the total surface area, thereby contributing to the nitrogen absorption by the material.