Rare Earth Ferricyanides

The Ce, Pr, Sin, Gd, Dy and Ho ferricyanides have been synthesized by procedure similar to that of Prandtl and Mohr [1]. The powder samples were characterized by means of IR spectroscopy utilizing frequency range of 4000 - 450 cm(-1). Thermal gravimetric analysis was carried out to determine the number of associated water molecules per formula unit. Scanning electron microscopy was used to determine the distribution of the particles. Recently, the crystal structure was determined from powder x-ray measurements by Rietveld method using GSAS software package [2]. It has been shown that the magnetic properties of these compounds predominantly depend on the electronic structure of trivalent rare earth ion.