Fabrication of hollow spheres FeCo alloy through a hydrothermal reduction method

Hollow spheres like FeCo alloy were synthesized by a hydrothermal method without using any templates or external magnetic field. The morphology and size of final products strongly depend on the reaction temperature and hydrazine hydrate concentrations. The structures and shapes of as-prepared samples were investigated by XRD, SEM, and EDS techniques in detail. The formation of such novel FeCo alloy was discussed on the basis of controlled experiments. The magnetic measurement demonstrated that the hollow spheres FeCo alloy exhibited ferromagnetic nature with saturation magnetization of 169.35 emu/g and coercivity of 528.5 Oe, respectively. Moreover, the FeCo alloy shows high wave-absorbing properties (e.g., -183 dB), which are expected to be applied in microwave absorbing materials. Those results showed a potential application in ferrofluids and other related magnetic devices. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.