Synthesis, structural and dielectric properties of Mg/Zn ferrites -PVA nanocomposites

Significant progress has been done in the synthesis of polymer nanocomposites owing to their great application in various fields like in devices, limiting diodes, photodetectors, solar cells, and spin-coating. The present study deals with the incorporation of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanocomposites blend using Mg0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 nano-particles. The Micro-emulsion method has been utilized to synthesis Mg0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 nanoparticles and after that implanted into PVA network via ultrasound-assisted liquid-phase approach. This method can be used to solve problems with nanoparticles dispersion and stabilization in the PVA matrix. Under ultrasonication, the aggre-gation of nanoparticles was found to be reduced. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that PVA chains have encircled the Mg0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 nanoparticles, which is further verified by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) peak shifting values. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns demonstrated that the composite crystalline structure is single-phase cubic. The crystallite size for the largest peak (1 1 1) increases gradually from 31.49 to 43.79 nm by increasing the concentration (0.1-0.5 g) of nanoparticles with PVA. The interaction of PVA and nanoparticles in nanocomposites samples was confirmed by FTIR, which showed shifting bands in FTIR spectra. Loss factor and dielectric constant show a decreasing trend, with variable amounts of nanoparticles and constant polymer concentration. The dielectric properties of with variation of nanoparticles revealed that these materials might be considered a good candidate for modern devices like memristors, and Random access memories (RAM).

Automated summary

This study explores the incorporation of Mg0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 nanoparticles into a PVA network using ultrasound-assisted liquid-phase method to address dispersion and stabilization issues. TEM and FTIR confirmed the encirclement of PVA chains around nanoparticles, and XRD demonstrated a single-phase cubic crystalline structure in the composites.