Combustion synthesis of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles-Influence of fuel to oxidizer ratio

The effect of fuel characteristics on the processing of nano-sized cobalt ferrite fine powders by the combustion technique is reported. By using different combinations of glycine fuel and metal nitrates, the adiabatic flame temperature (T-ad) of the process as well as product characteristics could be controlled easily. Thermodynamic modelling of the combustion reaction shows that as the fuel-to-oxidant ratio increases, the amount of gases produced and adiabatic flame temperatures also increases. The powders obtained by combustion were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermo gravimetric analysis and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) measurements. The particle size of phase pure cobalt ferrite nanoparticles was found to be <40 nm in this investigation. The effects of glycine addition with stoichiometric (phi = 1), fuel lean (phi < 1) and fuel rich (phi > 1) precursor batches were investigated separately. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.