In this study, composite magnetic microspheres of artemisia seed gum and chitosan were prepared in a well-shaped spherical form with a size range of 230-460 mu m by the suspension crosslinking technique for use in the application of magnetic carrier technology. The magnetic material used in the preparation of the composite microspheres was prepared by precipitation from FeCl3 and FeSO4 solution in basic medium. The morphological, magnetic properties, and the functional groups of the microspheres were characterized by different techniques (i.e., SEM, magnetometry, and FTIR). The results demonstrated that the stirring rate of the suspension and the Fe3O4/chitosan ratio are the most effective parameters for the average of the size distributions and the magnetic quality of the microspheres, while the amount of artemisia seed gum and Tween-80 have no significant effect on these properties. The best magnetic quality of the composite magnetic microspheres is around 4.08 emu/g microspheres at 10 KG magnetic field intensity. The thermal stability of the composite magnetic microspheres was measured by using DSC methods. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.