Synthesis, characterization, and magnetic properties of NiFe2O4 nanoparticles

In order to adjust the crystallite size and structure, NiFe2O4 was prepared in this study via a polyacrylamide gel method. Various characterization techniques like XRD, FT-IR, SEM, and VSM were used to learn more about the fabricated materials. The XRD corroborated that a crystalline NiFe2O4 phase with a cubic structure was produced. Microstructural studies showed that the produced particles have an irregular morphology with an average particle size of about 90 nm. The Williamson-Hall equation was utilized to examine the contributions of crystallite size and lattice strain of the samples. STA results showed the decomposition of the polymeric network gel during calcination. The crystallite size increases with increasing calcination temperatures, whereas the lattice strain slumps. The activation energy for crystallite growth was calculated to be 43.2 KJ.mol-1. VSM findings showed that saturation magnetization improves with temperature, which may be attributed to the crystallite growth of the particles. The coercivity of the samples dropped with an increase in the temperature.