The role of surfactant in synthesis of magnetic nanocrystalline powder of NiFe2O4 by sol–gel auto-combustion method

Abstract

In this work, a new sol–gel auto-combustion method has been performed to synthesize single phase nickel ferrite nanocrystalline powders by using n-cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, as a cationic surfactant. The gels were prepared from ferric and nickel nitrates and citric acid. Ammonia was used as pH adjusting agent as well. The effects of the surfactant on the after combustion calcination process and the reduction of the resulting powder crystallite size which affects the magnetic properties of the material were investigated by XRD and DTA/TGA techniques. The results showed that the ignition of the gels in air have a self-propagating behavior. Addition of surfactant to the starting solution affected the crystallite size of the synthesized powders and their phase constitution. The crystallite size of nickel ferrite powder in sample with surfactant was obtained 31.2 nm. The other important result of this study was production of single phase nickel ferrite directly after combustion while without surfactant the nickel ferrite single phase was obtained only after a post-calcination process at 1000 °C.