Abstract:

This work reports the structural characterization of NiFe2O4 ferrite nanoparticle sample, prepared by sol-gel auto-combustion process. Prepared samples were sintered at three different temperatures such as 600 °C, 800 °C and 1000 °C for 4 h. X-ray diffraction patterns were used to determine the lattice constant, crystallite size, bulk density and porosity of the prepared samples. It has been observed that the crystallite size increased from 27 nm to 52 nm with the increase in sintering temperature. Bertaut method was applied on the XRD data to estimate the cation distribution of NiFe2O4 prepared at different sintering temperatures. It has been observed that Ni2+ ions prefer to occupy the octahedral B-site and its occupancy towards octahedral site increased with the increase in sintering temperature. On the other hand Fe3+ ions distributed randomly over tetrahedral A- and octahedral B-sites. Theoretical lattice constant and oxygen positional parameter were also calculated from the cation distribution.

Keywords: Nickel ferrite; Ssol-gel synthesis; Sintering temperature, Cation distribution