Development of cobalt ferrite powder preparation employing the sol–gel technique and its structural characterization

This work focuses on the development of a method to make cobalt ferrite powder using the sol–gel process. A particular emphasis is devoted to the understanding of the role of the chemical parameters involved in the sol–gel technique, and of the heat treatment on the structures and morphologies of the materials obtained. Several samples of cobalt ferrite powder were obtained by varying the initial parameters of the process in addition to the heat treatment temperature. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy were used to identify the structure and morphology of samples demonstrating the influence of the initial parameters. DTA/TGA was carried out on two standard samples to identify important reaction temperatures during the heat treatment. The average size of the nano crystallites was estimated for a sample by the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the strongest X-ray diffraction (XRD) peak. It has been found that the chelating agent and the crosslinker have a critical influence on the resultant structure, the particle size and the particle size distribution.

Research highlightsThis work focuses on the sol–gel process and the effects that the initial parameters have on the final product, which is the cobalt ferrite powder, in addition to the heat treatment. Particular interest is devoted to understand how the crosslinker and the chelating agent work and affect the final product.