Comparative study of multi functional nanoferrites for radiation shielding, photoluminescence and antibacterial properties

Abstract

• The nanoferrites are synthesized, characterized and analyzed. • Nickel ferrite shows good antimicrobial activity. • Barium Ferrite is found to be good absorbing material for X-ray/gamma radiation. The synthesised nanoferrites ( BaFe 2 O 4 (BFO), ZnFe 2 O 4 (ZFO), NiFe 2 O 4 (NFO) and MgFe 2 O 4 (MFO)) via solution combustion method are characterized, analyzed and compared for the various applications such as radiation shielding, display applications and as antimicrobial properties. The powder X-ray diffraction confirms the cubic for MFO, NFO, ZFO nanoferrites and orthorhombic spinel crystal structure for BFO nanoferrites. The surface morphology shows the agglomerated and irregular shaped nanoparticles with different grain sizes for different chosen nanoferrites. As the atomic number of the metal in the ferrite increases, the IR absorption peak observed in the range 400–650 cm −1 slightly shifting towards higher wavenumber side whereas the other peaks remains unaltered. BFO shows blue and green emission whereas ZFO shows green and orange red emission. MFO and NFO exhibits blue, green and red emission peaks which finds application in display technology. In addition to PL, antibacterial and X-ray/Gamma ray shielding properties are also studied in detail. The direct energy band gap, photoluminescence (PL) intensity, mass attenuation coefficient and percentage of bacterial inhibition was found to depend on crystallite size and atomic number of the metallic element present in the chosen nanoferrite. Among the chosen nanoferrites, the percentage of inhibition for the both gram-positive and the gram-negative bacteria was found to be larger for NFO nanoferrite. It can be concluded that NFO nanoferrite is having good antimicrobial properties than that of the other studied ferrites. Whereas, BFO is observed as good absorbing material for X-ray/gamma radiation. Present comparative study identified the type of nanoferrite suitable for display technology, Antimicrobial and X-ray/gamma absorbing material.