Eco-friendly synthesis of nano-sized cobalt ferrites and influence of pH variation on structural properties

This report presents the synthesis of cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) by co-precipitation method and its subsequent characterization by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscope (AFM), TG-DTA and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) techniques. XRD results confirm the formation of single phase cubic spinel structure, having lattice constant from 8.4029 Å to 8.3744 Å. We also report hopping length (LA and LB), strain (ɛ) and dislocation density (ρD) of ferrite sample. AFM images show the microstructure of ferrite samples. The TG-DTA of sample CoFe2O4 of pH 8, confirms the formation of final product at 683 °C. The FTIR curves for CoFe2O4 series shows two major peaks near 492 cm−1 and 442 cm−1 which are assigned to the tetrahedral and octahedral sites, respectively, in a spinel structure.