Synthesis of Barium Hexaferrite with Addition of Tapioca as Rodlike Template

Abstract

Barium hexaferrite is categorized as hexagonal ferrite material with ferrimagnet properties. Barium hexaferrite has high coercivity, curie temperature, anisotropy magnetic field, and chemical stability that is often used as permanent magnet. It can be synthesized by using bottom up or top down method. The bottom up method of sol-gel has potential advantages in industry application compared to the top down method because of low energy requirement, more homogeneous product, and low time consuming to achieve nanometer size. The development of sol-gel method by using tapioca and chitosan as surfactant increases the quality of the product. Tapioca is used to increase anisotropy properties of particles by changing the particles shape into rodlike shape whereas chitosan is used to stabilize them at small size. Molar ratio of Fe3+/Ba2+ is set on 12 and the ratio of tapioca/chitosan is set on 1/3, 1/2, and 1. Iron (III) nitrate is used as Fe3+ source whereas barium nitrate is used as Ba2+ source. Condensation is done by heating up the sol system in the oven at 100OC. The product then is calcined at 1000OC with holding time of 3 hours. The calcined product is then characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM). XRD result shows that the hematite phase has still been formed. The occurrence of the phase indicates that the reaction between iron and barium is uncompleted. SEM images show the existence of needle and rod-shaped particles with diameter of 200nm–550nm. It explains that tapioca can be used as rodlike template. The increase of tapioca tends to enlarge the rod-shaped particle and remove the needle-shaped particle. VSM result shows that the highest value of Br is found in the sample of tapioca/chitosan with the ratio of 1/3 and the value of 24 emu/g. The fact indicates that the optimal ratio of tapioca/chitosan is 1/3.