In this paper we study the possibility to control the size of iron oxide (Fe 3 O 4 ) nanoparticles by the microemulsion technique. We used a water-in-oil reverse microemulsion system with n-hexadecil trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a cationic surfactant, n-butanol as a co-surfactant, n-hexanol as a continuous oil phase, and aqueous phase. The magnetite nanopowders were synthesized by a single microemulsion technique in which the aqueous phase contains only metal ions (Fe 2+ and Fe
3+). The particle size of the powders varied in the range of 14-36 nm depending on the preparation conditions. We studied the influence of changing the water/surfactant ratio (W 0 = 5, 10, 15, 20) and the metallic ion (Fe 2+ and Fe 3+ ) concentration on the particle size distribution and crystallinity of Fe 3 O 4 .