Synthesis and characterization of Calcium and Cobalt doped Mg and Zn ferrites for water purification

Abstract

Spinel ferrites are of great interest for both fundamental science and technological applications due to their outstanding physical, chemical, and magnetic properties. Among various ferrites, Mg-Zn ferrites are one of the best magnetic materials for researchers due to their unique properties such as high electric resistivity, low coercivity, low eddy current, dielectric losses, low cost and better environmental stability. This makes ferrite useful in many applications such as power transformers, microwave devices, computer memories, logic devices, recording heads, loading coils, antenna rods, color monitoring tubes, telecommunications, hyperthermia etc. In particular, Mg-Zn ferrite nanoparticles have gained increased interest for many applications such as catalysts, antimicrobial potential, sensors, nanoelectronic tools, solar cells, microwave absorbing nanomaterials, communication pulse transformers, etc. In the present work, the effect of doping of calcium and cobalt ions on various properties of Mg-Zn (Mg0.4Zn0.6Fe2O4) nanoferrites was studied by synthesizing Mg0.4Zn(0.6-x)CaxFe2O4 (x=0.0 to 0.6, step size 0.1), and Mg0.4Zn(0.6-x)CoxFe2O4 (x=0.1 to 0.6, step size 0.1) using citrate precursor route. All the prepared samples were investigated for their structural properties using X-ray Diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy that confirmed the cubic spinel structure (Fd-3m space group). The crystallite size was calculated using Scherrer s equation. All other XRD parameters such as x-ray density, bulk density porosity, etc. were calculated by XRD graphs tensile strain was experienced by all the synthesized samples as observed by W-H plots. Morphological investigation was done through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) examination. SEM micrographs revealed an almost spherical shape of the particles having agglomeration with the average particle size of ~100nm. EDX spectra of the Ca and Co-doped Mg-Zn nanoferrites confirmed that there was no impurity element in the samples.