Magnetic properties of thermally reduced graphene oxide decorated with PtNi nanoparticles

• Simultaneous synthesis method for growth of PtNi nanoparticles on RGO.
• Microstructural features of PtNiRGO nanocomposite were studied with extensive characterization.
• Diamagnetic behavior of RGO and ferromagnetic ordering for PtNiRGO nanocomposite.

Nanocomposites of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) with PtNi nanoparticles were obtained by in situ thermal reduction of a physical mixture of GO and metallic precursors. RGO and PtNiRGO nanocomposites were studied by differential thermal analysis and thermogravimetry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The method presented here is a one-step thermal reduction procedure that allows the deposition of bimetallic PtNi nanoparticles with tetragonal crystalline structure and particle size ranging from 3 nm to 30 nm on RGO. The magnetic properties of the RGO and PtNiRGO nanocomposites were measured by vibrating sample magnetometry, which revealed that the RGO exhibited diamagnetism at room temperature and paramagnetism at temperatures below 10 K. PtNiRGO nanocomposites show hysteresis and ferromagnetic ordering at room temperature with a Curie temperature of 658 K. In addition, its magnetic properties at low temperature were strongly influenced by the paramagnetic contribution of RGO and the morphology of the bimetallic nanoparticles.