Influence of Cu2+ substitution on the structural, optical, magnetic, and antibacterial behaviour of zinc ferrite nanoparticles
D. Nadhiya, Abhinav Kala, P. Sasikumar, Mustafa K. A. Mohammed, P. Thirunavukkarasu, M. Prabhaharan, C. Karnan, Salim Albukhaty, Majid S. Jabir, Asad Syed, Abdallah M. Elgorban, Nouf S. S. Zaghloul
Abstract
Ferrite nanoparticles are an emerging material for industrial and biomedical applications. Herein, a simple non-aqueous sol–gel method is used to synthesize CuxZn(1-x)Fe2O4 (x = 0.0, 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75) nanoparticles. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV–Vis spectroscopy, and a vibrating-sample magnetometer (VSM) were utilized to investigate the structural formation and magnetic merits of the prepared ferrite nanoparticles. The Rietveld refinement of the X-ray diffraction pattern confirmed the formation of single-phase cubic structures with Fd3¯m space groups for all samples. The increase in cu2+ concentration in zinc ferrite nanoparticles decreases the lattice parameters from 8.4418 to 8.4368. The energy gap of cu2+-doped zinc ferrite increases from 1.89 to 2.04 eV with a decrease in particle size. MH loop revealed an increase in Ms and Mr Parameters as Hc reduces with an increase in Cu2+ concentration in the zinc ferrite matrix. It was discovered that an increase in Cu2+ content improved the antibacterial activities of Cu2+-doped zinc ferrite against all bacterial species.