Structural, magnetic and gas sensing properties of nanosized copper ferrite powder synthesized by sol gel combustion technique

•One of the first study on ethanol sensing of cubic copper ferrite.•In-situ High temperature XRD done shows phase transition from cubic to tetragonal.•A non-monotonic increase in magnetization was seen with calcination temperature.•A response of 86% was obtained towards 500 ppm ethanol.•Tried to correlate sensing response and ion content in spinel structure.

Stoichiometric nano sized copper ferrite particles were synthesized by sol gel combustion technique. They were then calcined at various temperatures ranging from 300–800 °C and were either furnace cooled or quenched in liquid nitrogen. A high magnetisation value of 48.2 emu/g signifying the cubic phase of copper ferrite, was obtained for sample quenched to liquid nitrogen temperature from 800 °C. The ethanol sensing response of the samples was studied and a maximum of 86% response was obtained for 500 ppm ethanol in the case of a furnace cooled sample calcined at 800 °C. The chemical sensing is seen to be correlated with the c/a ratio and is best in the case of tetragonal copper ferrite.