Synthesis and characterization of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles via sol-gel auto combustion method

Abstract

This article reports the synthesis of cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) nanoparticles by low-cost sol-gel auto combustion method. The synthesized CoFe2O4 nanoparticles were characterized using X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX), UV-Visible (UV-Vis), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Vibrating Sample Magnetometry (VSM). The XRD pattern inferred the formation of cubic spinel structure with average crystallite size 35.3 nm. The crystallite size was obtained in the range 32-37.5 nm in FESEM analysis. The elemental composition was confirmed using EDX spectroscopy. The presence of spectral lines at positions 465.57 cm-1 and 577.52 cm-1 associated to stretching vibrations of Co-O in octahedral sites and Fe-O in tetrahedral sites confirmed the spinel structure. The magnetic properties such as saturation magnetization (Ms) 67.79 emu/g, coercivity (Oe) 874.76 Oe and remnant (Mr) 29.07 emu/g were obtained from the hysteresis curve. The bandgap 1.409 eV was obtained for synthesized CoFe2O4 using Tauc plot from UV-Vis absorption spectra.