Synthesis, characterization and gas sensitivity investigation of Ni0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 nanoparticles

• Powder and disk nickel zinc ferrite nanoparticles with diameters less than 20 nm were prepared.
• Sensor sensitivity of six different gases was tested in an isolated box and acetonitrile had the best sensitivity performance.
• The maximum sensor sensitivity was maximum at 350 °C for all tested gases except chloroform.
• At 200 ppm concentration, the sensor capacity is reached to the saturation state.

Nickel zinc ferrite nanoparticles with diameters less than 20 nm were synthesized by co-precipitation method. The synthesized nanoparticles were annealed at 500 °C. Two types of samples (powder and disk) were prepared. The disk sample was prepared by pressing the powder sample. Magnetic and structural properties of the products were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and alternating gradient-force magnetometer (AGFM). The X-ray analysis shows that the formation of the synthesized nickel zinc ferrite is spinell. The average crystalline size for nickel zinc ferrite powder was found around 19 nm (calculated by Debye-Scherer formula).The formation, size and the uniformity of the samples were determined by TEM. It was found that the size of nanoparticles should be around 18 nm from the SEM image. AGFM diagrams shows that the magnetization of the powder sample at the 9 kOe is 21.5 emu/g that of disk sample is 33 emu/g. Therefore, the magnetization was increased by pressing the nickel zinc ferrite nanoparticles. Sensor sensitivity of this disk ferrite is investigated in an isolated box. For this purpose, the samples are injected to this box and six gases (ethanol, methanol, chloroform, acetonitrile, acetone and methane) are exposed to the ferrite by a mechanical gate. The acetonitrile had the best sensitivity performance.