Milling time and temperature dependence on Fe2TiO5 nanoparticles synthesized by mechanical alloying method

Abstract

Fe2TiO5 is one type of titanate oxides which has MxTiyOz crystal structure. It has various kinds of applications due to its electric and magnetic properties such as spintronics, electromagnetic devices, and gas sensor. In this study, Fe2TiO5 nanoparticles were synthesized by simple mechanical alloying using planetary ball milling machine with various milling times and sintering temperatures. TiO2 and Fe2O3 powders obtained from coprecipitation process were used as starting materials. The resulted Fe2TiO5 powders were characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Vibration Sample Magnetometer (VSM) in order to observe crystal quality, particles morphology, and magnetic properties respectively. As the milling time increases and the sintering temperature decreases, the crystal size of Fe2TiO5 phase decreases. The smallest crystal size of the synthesized Fe2TiO5 nanoparticles was ∼ 51 nm obtained by the milling time of 25 hours and sintering at 1100°C. The distribution of the resulted Fe2TiO5 nanoparticles was not so homogeneous due to the appearance of small amount impurities. The VSM measurements show that a paramagnetic property was observed which should be analyzed more details on the low external magnetic fields.