Preparation of Fe₃O₄/OA/DMSO Ferrofluids using a Double Surfactant System as Antifungal Materials Candidate

This research aimed at identifying the structure and potentials of Fe₃O₄ coated with a double surfactant system as an antifungal material. The double surfactant was maintained by exploring dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and oleic acid (OA). The samples were varied with temperature treatments at room temperature until 200 °C. Based on the results of XRD data analysis, it was found that the sample phase was Fe₃O₄ overall with the highest peak at 35.59° and the particle size of approximately 10 nm. Based on the SEM-EDS characterization, the morphology of the samples and the constituent element of Fe₃O₄ could be identified; they were Fe and O with the mass percentage of each sample was 78.7% and 21.3% respectively. FTIR was used to identify the sample functional group and was able to detect the existence of constituent component of Ferrofluid which was Fe₃O₄ at wavenumbers of 596 and 713 cm^-1, then the stretching bonds of oleic acid were at the wavenumbers of 1312, 1376, 1464, 2856, and 2920 cm^-1, DMSO at the wavenumbers of 954 and 1018 cm^-1, and the stretching bonds of olive oil at the wavenumbers of 1089, 1169, 1233, 1599, 1742, 2856, 2920, and 3008 cm^-1. The antifungal potential was tested using a diffusion method and the best result was obtained for the sample treated at room temperature with the fungal zone of inhibition was around 13 mm and potentially recommended for an antifungal material.