Experimental mixtures of superparamagnetic single domain magnetite with respect to Day-Dunlop plotsShow others and affiliations
2015 (English)In: Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, E-ISSN 1525-2027, Vol. 16, no 6, p. 1739-1752Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Day‐Dunlop plots are widely used in paleomagnetic and environmental studies as a tool to determine the magnetic domain state of magnetite, i.e., superparamagnetic (SP), stable single‐domain (SD), pseudosingle‐domain (PSD), multidomain (MD), and their mixtures. The few experimental studies that have examined hysteresis properties of SD‐SP mixtures of magnetite found that the ratios of saturation remanent magnetization to saturation magnetization and the coercivity of remanence to coercivity are low, when compared to expected theoretical mixing trends based on Langevin theory. This study reexamines Day‐Dunlop plots using experimentally controlled mixtures of SD and SP magnetite grains. End‐members include magnetotactic bacteria (MSR‐1) as the SD source, and a commercial ferrofluid or magnetotactic bacteria (ΔA12) as the SP source. Each SP‐component was added incrementally to a SD sample. Experimental results from these mixing series show that the magnetization and coercivity ratios are lower than the theoretical prediction for bulk SP magnetic size. Although steric repulsion was present between the particles, we cannot rule out interaction in the ferrofluid for higher concentrations. The SP bacteria are noninteracting as the magnetite was enclosed by an organic bilipid membrane. Our results demonstrate that the magnetization and coercivity ratios of SD‐SP mixtures can lie in the PSD range, and that an unambiguous interpretation of particle size can only be made with information about the magnetic properties of the end‐members.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2015. Vol. 16, no 6, p. 1739-1752
Keywords [en]
Day plot, superparamagnetism, single domain, magnetite, particle size mixture
National Category
Computer and Information Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-31893DOI: 10.1002/2015GC005744OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-31893DiVA, id: diva2:1151751
2017-10-242017-10-242023-05-16Bibliographically approved