A thin film of nanosized Fe3O4 particles prepared by hydrothermal method was immobilized on the surface of polyamide 6 fiber using ferric trichloride and ferrous chloride as the precursor, N,N-dimethyl formamide as the swelling agent and sodium dodecyl sulfate as the dispersant agent. The morphology, crystalline phase, thermal stability, magnetization properties and chemical structure of polyamide 6 fabric before and after treatments were characterized by means of scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques. The tensile properties and abrasion resistance were also measured. It was found that the inverse cubic spinel phase of Fe3O4 nanoparticles with an average size 50 nm were synthesized, and synchronously grafted onto polyamide fiber surface. As compared with the original fabric, the onset decomposition temperature of the Fe3O4-coated fabric decreased slightly. The saturation magnetization was measured to be 3.8 emu/g at temperature of 300 K. The tensile properties were enhanced to some extent mainly due to the fabric shrinkage. The abrasion resistance of the Fe3O4-coated fabric behaved well. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.