Influence of DL-Alanine Fuel Concentrationon Structural and Magnetic Properties ofNickel Ferrite Nanoparticles

Abstract

Nano sized NiFe2O4 has been prepared through Sol-gel auto combustion route by using DL-Alanine as fuel. The phase formation of NiFe2O4 is investigated by XRD and Raman techniques.In the case of higher fuel content two molar (2M) in the mixture, it is noted that the as-prepared powders were highly crystalline, and exhibited the typical XRD peaks corresponding to the formation of the NiFe2O4.According to the XRD spectra, the sample prepared with 2M of fuel has better crystallinity than those prepared with one molar (1M) of fuel. Therefore, 2M of fuel is preferable to prepare single phase NiFe2O4 nanoparticles with better crystallinity. Nickel ferrite powders (NFO) were further investigated using Raman spectroscopy in order to differentiate the NFO from other phases like Fe3O4 and gamma Fe2O3, which have the similar structures and therefore similar XRD patterns. The Raman spectra for all the samples resemble to the inverse spinel structure of NiFe2O4. It is observed that sample NiFe2O4 powders that were prepared with different molar concentration (1M and 2M) of the fuel DL-Alanine added to the solution mixture have different magnetization. Sample added with 2M DL-Alanine fuel shows higher magnetization as compared to the sample added with 1M DL-Alanine fuel due to better crystallinity. The room temperature VSM studies show that the nano NiFe2O4 particles exhibit soft ferromagnetic nature with high saturation magnetization of 34.993 emu/g for 2 M fuel amount.