Synthesis Characterization and Application of Cobalt Zinc Nanoferrites in Water Purification

Abstract

Spinel ferrite nanoparticles have shown immense capability in various applications such as in electronics, agriculture, medicines, telecommunication, high frequency devices and water purification etc. Among all the spinel ferrites, the combination of Co-Zn has attracted huge interest because of its high permeability as well as high saturation magnetic flux density, high electrical resistivity, mechanical hardness, chemical stability and reasonable cost. These compounds are widely used in recording heads, photocatalysts, anode nanomaterials, nano sensors, nanoelectronic tools, solar cells, microwave absorbing nanomaterials, communication pulse transformers etc. In the present research work, cobalt zinc nanoferrites having composition CoxZn1-xFe2O4 (x=0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5) have been synthesized using citrate precursor method. Also, the doping of metal ions (nickel and magnesium) was done to study the effect of doping on various properties of cobalt-zinc nanoferrites. The samples were investigated for structural properties using X-ray Diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy that revealed the single phase spinel cubic structure having Fd-3m phase symmetry in accordance with JCPDS card no. 22- 1012. The crystallite size was calculated using Scherrer s equation. All the synthesized samples were found to have tensile strain as observed by W-H plots. All other XRD parameters such as x-ray density, hopping lengths, porosity etc. were calculated by XRD graphs. Morphological analysis was done through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) examination. SEM micrographs revealed the elongated particles having agglomeration with a particle size of ~100nm for undoped and doped cobalt-zinc nanoferrites. The TEM micrographs depicted spherical shape morphology having particle size in accordance with the XRD observations. EDX spectra of the Mg and Ni doped Co-Zn nanoferrites confirmed that there was no impurity element in the samples. The Fourier Transform Infr