Nanocrystalline Ni–Zn spinel ferrites: size-dependent physical, photocatalytic and antioxidant properties
Nur Jalal Mondal, Rahul Sonkar, Bitopan Boro, Mritunjoy Prasad Ghosh, Devasish Chowdhury
Abstract
the chemical co-precipitation method. Crystallographic phase purity and formation of the spinel cubic phase for all the samples were tested by X-ray diffraction studies. The magnetic properties of the as-synthesized ferrite nanoparticles have been examined thoroughly at 5 K and 300 K. Emergence of superparamagnetic behavior has been observed for the sample with the smallest size ferrite nanoparticles (ZNF-1). The photocatalytic efficiency of all the nanocatalysts was tested on methylene blue (MB) dye and the smallest sized nanocatalyst (ZNF-1) was identified as the most efficient catalyst in degrading MB dye under light illumination. The degradation efficiency was found to decrease with increasing mean particle size of the prepared samples. The antioxidant properties of the prepared ferrite samples were also studied. Here, too, the ZNF-1 sample with the smallest sized nanoparticles exhibited maximum scavenging of free radicals compared to other samples. Hence, the present study clearly demonstrates that smaller-sized Ni-Zn spinel ferrites are efficient materials for tuning the physical properties as well as for use in photocatalytic and antioxidant applications.