Chemical Co-precipitation Synthesis and Characterizations of Nickel Ferrite Nanoparticles

In the present work, spinel nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4) nanoparticles were prepared through chemical co-precipitation method taking nitrates as raw materials. The molar ratio of nickel to ferric was kept at 1:2 (0.25 M and 0.5 M respectively) proportion. The pH of the mixed solution was maintained at 7 by adding 2 M NaOH solution. The prepared powder was sintered at 600C for 4 h and same is used for further characterizations. Xray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy techniques were used to study the structure and morphology. The X-ray diffraction pattern shows the entire diffraction peak belonging to cubic spinel structure. No extra peak other than cubic phase was seen in the XRD pattern. The analysis of XRD pattern confirms the formation of single phase material. The crystallite size, lattice constant, X-ray density etc. structural parameters were deduced using XRD data and found to be in the reported range. The surface morphology was studied through scanning electron microscopy technique. The grain size and specific surface area was determined using SEM analysis which proves that, the prepared nickel ferrite particles are nanocrystalline in nature.