Synthesis, characterization and analytical applications of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles

Abstract

• CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticless have been prepared. • The isolated nanoparticles have been characterized by IR, XRD, TEM and SAED • The analytical applications of CoFe 2 O 4 have been studied. A simple, rapid, and reliable method for adsorptive separation and pre-concentration of Zn(II) ions in aqueous solution using cobalt ferrite nanoparticles as adsorbent followed by spectrophotometric determination has been developed. Cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (CFNs) have been synthesized by co-precipitation method and characterized by infrared (IR), x-ray powder diffraction (XRD), high resolution transmittance electron microscope (HR-TEM) and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). The results indicated that the average particle size is 8.0 nm. The results of the adsorptive separation and pre-concentration of Zn(II) ions using CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles as adsorbent showed an extraction recovery > 98% from 50 mL aqueous sample at pH 8, initial Zn(II) concentration 0.05 mg/L, adsorbent dose 2 g/L and 2 mL of 0.5 M HNO 3 as eluent. The pre-concentration factor obtained was 25 under these optimum conditions. The pre-concentration factor obtained was 25 under ideal experimental circumstances. The suggested method was successfully applied for determination of trace zinc concentrations in several water samples using flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry and satisfactory results were obtained.