Effect of urea and glucose on the surface morphology and properties of CoFe2O4 nanomaterials

We report the effect of urea and glucose on the morphology and properties of CoFe2O4 nanomaterials. Using a sol-gel process followed by calcination, CoFe2O4 sheets composed of uniform sized nanoparticles have been synthesized with the addition of urea and glucose. The size of the nanoparticles increased from 20 to 40 nm when the calcination temperature was increase from 500 to 700oC. Comparison experiments revealed that urea plays an important role to improve the purity of CoFe2O4 and decrease the thickness of sheet, whereas glucose limits the growth of crystalline grains of CoFe2O4. CoFe2O4 sheet obtained at 700oC shows the largest magnetic energy product of 4.57 MGOe, which is almost double times of that of CoFe2O4 particles prepared without using either urea or glucose. Enhanced photocatalytic performance on degradation of Methyl orange was also observed from the CoFe2O4 sheets, which can be attributed to their modified morphology.