Effects of pH and citric acid content on the structure and magnetic properties of MnZn ferrite nanoparticles synthesized by a sol-gel autocombustion method

MnZn ferrite nanoparticles have been synthesized by a sol-gel autocombustion technique with different pHs 010, 5 and 7 and different citric acid to metal nitrate (CA/MN) molar ratios of 025, 0.5 and 1. The crystallite size, microstructure and magnetic properties were studied using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and vibrating sample magnetometry methods. The results showed that the single phase MnZn ferrite could be achieved directly without any post-calcination using pH of 7 and CA/MN molar ratio of 0.5. MnZn ferrite nanoparticles prepared by pH=7 and CA/MN=0.5 with the crystallite size of 39 nm exhibited saturation magnetization of 20.9 emu/g and coercivity of 44 Oe. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.