Effect of annealing temperature on magnetic and mössbauer properties of ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles by sol-gel approach

Abstract

In this study, spinel ZnFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized by citrate sol-gel route using nickel nitrates, ferric nitrates and citric acid by annealing at 900, 1000, and 1100 ? C. We reported the structural and magnetic properties (including Mössbauer analysis) for anisotropy ZnFe 2 O 4 NPs annealed at different temperatures. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) were utilized to analyze the structural properties of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). Morphological features of resultant MNPs were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The observed XRD results displayed that the crystallite size increased from 38.60 to 49.28 nm with increasing the annealing temperature in a distinct linear trend. The enhancement of saturation magnetization of the uniaxial ZnFe 2 O 4 NPs was studied and varied from 1.28 to 1.66 emu/g as the annealing temperature increases. The Mössbauer spectra results show that ZnFe 2 O 4 ferrites were paramagnetic in nature at room temperature (RT). © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.