Abstract Many organic micropollutants have recently been identified in natural water sources and treated drinking water. Often, these compounds are not successfully degraded or removed by current water treatment processes. There is an increasing interest in developing new water treatment technologies based on catalytic nanoparticles to take advantage of enhanced particle reactivity at the nanoscale. Our current research focuses on the development and characterization of zero valent iron (ZVI) nanoparticles to improve nanoparticle design and enhance particle reactivity. The focus of this study was to evaluate two different iron salts as starting materials and to evaluate three different carboxymethyl cellulose stabilizers. The stabilizers were evaluated for their ability to stabilize ZVI nanoparticles during synthesis and to produce dispersed nanoparticles with narrow size distributions. Nanoparticles with a modal particle diameter of less than 50 nm were obtained. Particles were characterized using electr...