Publication

Abstract : Nickel ferrite is one of the versatile and technologically important soft ferrite materials due to its typical ferromagnetic properties, low conductivity and thus lower eddy current losses, high electrochemical stability, catalytic behavior and also abundance in nature. In the present work nickel ferrite nanoparticles are synthesized by sol-gel technique using citric acid as the chelating agent. 0.2M, 0.3M and 0.4M concentration of nickel nitrate, ferric nitrate and citric acid is taken and the ratio of metal nitrate to citric acid is taken as 1:1 by volume. The final product, the gel is annealed at three different temperatures 400,600 and 800°C. XRD analysis shows the cubic spinel phase of the nickel ferrite nanoparticles and the peaks matches with the JCPDS data. Micro structural analysis calculated for the prominent peak (311) showsincreases in crystallite size from 20 – 36nm with increases in temperature. The lattice parameter and the X-ray density are found to be in the range of 8.30-8.27 Å and 5.412 -5.557 g/cm3. FTIR analysis confirms the intrinsic stretching vibrations of the M-O is found around 600 cm−1which is attributed to the vibrations of the tetrahedral sites. SEM analysis, shows the agglomeration of crystallites with increasing annealing temperature. The crystallite size calculated by image J software matches with the crystallite size calculated by Scherer formula.