Comparative studies on the impact of synthesis methods on structural, optical, magnetic and catalytic properties of CuFe2O4

Abstract Nano-crystalline cupper ferrites (CuFe 2 O 4 ) were synthesized by co-precipitation, solid-state reaction, thermal decomposition, sol-gel, and solution auto combustion methods. The samples were characterized by several techniques including XRD, FT-IR, SEM, TEM, and BET. Differences in crystallinity, surface area, particle size, magnetic parameters and catalytic properties of the prepared ferrite nanoparticles were observed. X-ray analysis showed that all samples, except sample prepared by auto combustion method (Cu aut ), are indexed as a cubic spinel structure with crystallite size lie in the range of 10–53 nm, whereas Cu aut sample showed an amorphous structure. FT-IR spectra confirmed the formation of the CuFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles and displayed clear absorption peaks at ~ 600 and 400 cm −1 which are characteristic for cubic spinel crystal structure. Ferrite samples showed strong optical absorption in the visible region at 520–620 nm. The photoluminescence results explored emission peaks in the range of visible region at 405–425, 450–460, 520–530 and 570–590 nm. All samples exhibited a superparamagnetic behavior, where the magnetic parameters are greatly changed by the preparation method and showed highest saturation magnetization of 29.04 emg/g for Cu therm sample and highest coercivity of 450 Oe for Cu gel sample prepared by sol-gel method. The surface and textural properties of the produced samples were also found to depend on the synthetic process. All the prepared CuFe 2 O 4 samples enhanced the thermal dissociation of ammonium perchlorate through a catalytic proton mechanism with the highest efficiency for Cu gel sample.