Preparation and characterization of polyvinyl alcohol–cobalt ferrite nanocomposites

In this work polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)–cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) nanocomposites were successfully prepared by in situ precipitation and oxidation of Fe3+ and Co2+ within polymer matrix. Solid films were obtained by static casting method. X-ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (IR) and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) were used to characterize the nanocomposites. The diffraction patterns showed the formation of a single magnetic phase identified as CoFe2O4. VSM measurements revealed that the magnetic nanocomposite is ferromagnetic. The use of two different temperatures to obtain the nanocomposites allowed the preparation of samples with magnetization values between 0.57 and 2.92 emu/g.