Calcium doped nickel ferrite powders prepared by sol-gel combustion method

Abstract

Calcium doped nickel ferrite powders have been prepared by sol-gel combustion technique. Metal nitrates, such as calcium nitrate, nickel nitrate and ferric nitrate, were used as the source materials and citric acid and polyvinyl alcohol were used as the burning agent and agglomeration reducing agent, respectively. The average crystallite size of the prepared ferrite was in the order of ~70- 92 nm. Due to the vast survey on calcium based ferrite materials with the existing ferrites, it was found that the research on calcium ferrite is scanty compared to other ferrite. Moreover, there is no report available on Calcium doped with nickel ferrite materials. Therefore, we report the structural studies of Ni_0.5Ca_0.5Fe₂O₄ synthesized by sol-gel combustion method. The structure, cubic morphology, and the identification of functional groups of the calcium-doped nickel ferrite were analyzed systematically using several analytical tools.