Study of n-Alkanethiol Self-Assembly Behavior on Iron Particles: Effect of Alkyl Chain Length and Adsorption Solvent on Resulting Iron-Based Magnetorheological Fluids.

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of organic molecules on metal surfaces are a type of inexpensive surface coating often used to improve metal substrate properties for sensors, electrochemistry, and nanofabrication applications. Iron, specifically, is one of the most commonly used metals, both as a pure metal and as an alloy due to its high conductivity, strong ferromagnetism, and low cost. However, magnetorheological fluids, which have shown impressive energy dampening in fields from civil infrastructure to biomedical devices utilizing iron dispersions, have suffered from low reliability and efficiency due to iron particle oxidation, corrosion, and settling. To understand the effect of self-assembled monolayers on iron and both the adsorbed particle's resistance against aggregation and performance impact, this work performs an in-depth study on alkanethiol-based self-assembled monolayers on iron particles. Adsorption of alkanethiols and the generation of SAMs on micron-sized iron particles were evaluated as a function of adsorption solvent polarity and alkanethiol chain length. Maximum alkanethiol loading, determined from appropriate isotherms, was found to strongly be a function of both parameters. Alkanethiol adsorption increased with increasing alkyl chain length and increasing solvent log P values in polar solvents. With respect to magnetorheologically relevant parameters, alkanethiol adsorption did not show any significant effect on both the magnetic properties of iron (as particles) and fluid on-state yield stress. The colloidal stability of n-alkanethiol adsorbed iron-based magnetorheological fluids (MRFs) was a function of both n-alkanethiol chain length and the iron particle adsorption solvent. MRFs composed of hexadecanethiol adsorbed iron prepared in polar solvents like methanol and ethanol showed excellent sedimentation stability compared to all other MRFs prepared in this study.