Abstract
The present article reports the results of studies related to the synthesis of MgFe2O4 nanocomposite powder by solution combustion process using mixture of fuels containing urea (U) and ammonium acetate (AA). The effect of mixture of fuel and sintering temperature on phase formation, structural, morphological and magnetic properties of MgFe2O4 particles were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive absorption x-ray (EDAX) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). Thermodynamic modeling of the combustion reaction shows that by using a mixture of urea and ammonium acetate fuels, the adiabatic flame temperature (Tad), exothermicity and amount of gases produced during the combustion process as well as product characteristics could be controlled. The use of mixture of fuels (U and AA) in the synthesis of MgFe2O4 was found to produce ferrites with finer agglomerates, higher crystallinity, higher magnetic properties and smaller crystallite sizes than when only urea was used. It was found that only samples prepared with a mixture of fuels (0.5U + 0.5AA) and sintered at 900oC for 2 h produced pure ferrite spinel phase while the auto-combusted and powders sintered at 600oC for 2 h had secondary phases. Apart from giving detailed information about the structural order of the samples, Raman spectroscopy also confirmed that MgFe2O4 is a mixed spinel ferrite.
Highlights
Nanostructures of magnetic materials have received more and more attention due to their unique and novel material properties and their uses in a wide variety of potential applications, such as information storage, cancer therapy, humidity and gas sensing, catalysis, magnetic cell separation and magnetic refrigeration [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
The solution combustion synthesis of MgFe2O4 using a mixture of fuels and the effect of sintering temperature on the phase formation, structure, morphological and magnetic properties has been studied
A thermodynamic consideration of the combustion reaction shows that the adiabatic flame temperature, exothermicity and the amount of gas produced decreased with decrease in the amounts of urea
Summary
Nanostructures of magnetic materials have received more and more attention due to their unique and novel material properties and their uses in a wide variety of potential applications, such as information storage, cancer therapy, humidity and gas sensing, catalysis, magnetic cell separation and magnetic refrigeration [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. It is well known that most of the physical and chemical properties which determines the applicability of spinel ferrites depends on the shape and size of nanoparticles and the thermal history of sample preparation as well [12,13,14,15,16]. The synthesis method plays a very important role on the physical, chemical, structural, and magnetic properties of a spinel ferrite. Combustion method imparts significant advantages like good stoichiometric control and ultrafine particle formation with narrow size distribution, which has an important influence on the magnetic properties of the ferrite [4, 28,29,30]
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