Synthesis of Co3O4-ZnO mixed metal oxide nanoparticles by homogeneous precipitation method

Co3O4-ZnO mixed metal oxide nanoparticles have been successfully prepared by a simple and surfactant-free homogeneous precipitation method in short time followed by calcination at low temperature (350 °C). The synthesized samples were characterized by means of a multitechnique approach involving powder X-ray diffraction, thermal gravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, UV-Visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, surface area measurements, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray analysis, transmission electron microscopy and a superconducting quantum interference device magnetometer. From the magnetic measurements Co3O4-ZnO mixed metal oxide nanoparticles were found to be weak ferromagnetic behavior at low temperature (10 K).