A co-casting method has been introduced to synthesize Fe/OMC, a kind of mesoporous carbon with iron nanoparticles embedded in the carbon pore-wall. The as-prepared materials were characterized by a variety of techniques such as N2 adsorption, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction and vibrating-sample magnetometry (VSM). Results show that the Fe/OMC basically maintains an ordered mesoporous structure. α-Fe nanoparticles exist in the carbon framework and show superparamagnetic behavior. Adsorption isotherms of tetracycline hydrochloride (TH) on the Fe/OMC show that the mesopore surface area and mesopore volume are crucial factors for the drug uptakes. Desorption kinetic studies show that the pore size was vital to the desorption rate of TH. The sample with larger pore size has higher desorption rate of TH.

Key words: magnetic, Fe/carbon composite, drug delivery, adsorption, desorption