MFCPji & MFIDji: New ImageJ Macros To Analyze Structure Formed In Magnetic Nanofluid

Abstract

The aqueous magnetic nanofluid consists of superparamagnetic nanoparticles, with a typical size 10-12 nm. On the application of the magnetic field, these nanoparticles align heterogeneously and form a chain or chain-like structure. This structure is observed using a microscope. Although such chain or microstructure formation is well reported in many articles, the method to identify and determine chain parameters, e.g., chain length, width, and associated counts, are scare. Similarly, inter-chain or successive distance is one of the critical parameters for the development of magnetic nanofluid based devices. This paper describes Magnetic Field induced Chain Parameters (MFCP) and Magnetic Field induced Interchain Distance (MFID) a set of new ImageJ methods to identify and determine (i) chain length, width, and associated counts, along with (ii) successive distance of the chains respectively in the magnetic nanofluid. This utilises a macro files such as MFCPji.txt and MFIDji.txt for ImageJ, which can be used on microscopic image of magnetic nanofluid without and with application of magnetic field. The method requires no specialised scientific equipment and can be run entirely using free to download software. The examples of microstructure formations in two different magnetic fluids (A & B) are discussed. The results of the associated weighted average chain width and counts, as well as the successive distance between the chains, are reported. The chain parameters are useful to determine diffraction grating angle. The MFCPji and MFIDji macros has been integrated into a macro tool set that can be configured to be run on ImageJ start up. The MFCPji and MFIDji are available from the following Uniform Resource Locator (URLs): https://github.com/urveshsoni/ImageJ -- Macros https://ruchadesailab.wordpress.com/publication/