REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

www.mod.gov.rs

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

Material Resources Sector

Defensive Technologies Department

Military Technical Institute

www.vti.mod.gov.rs

Thermal analysis of nanocrystalline NiFe₂O₄ phase formation in solid state reaction

Vladan Ćosović

Institute of Chemistry, Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Njegoševa 12, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia, vlada@tmf.bg.ac.rs

Aleksandar Ćosović

Institute for Technology of Nuclear and Other Mineral Raw Materials, Franse d’ Eperea 86, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia, a.cosovic@itnms.ac.rs

Tomáš Žák

Institute of Physics of Materials AS CR, v.v.i., Žižkova 22, CZ-616 62 Brno, Czech Republic, zak@ipm.cz

Nadežda Talijan

Institute of Chemistry, Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Njegoševa 12, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia, ntalijan@tmf.bg.ac.rs

Duško Minić

University of Priština, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Knjaza Miloša 7, 38220 Kosovska Mitrovica Serbia, dminic65@open.telekom.rs

Dragana Živković

Technical Faculty in Bor, University of Belgrade, Vojske Jugoslavije 12, 19210 Bor, Serbia, dzivkovic@tf.bor.ac.rs

Abstract: Formation of nanocrystalline magnetic NiFe₂O₄ phase via a low-cost reaction in a solid state was studied using combined differential thermal analysis (DTA) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) followed by additional thermomagnetic measurements (TM). The observed thermal effects DTA/TGA and considerable increase of an overall magnetic moment during TM were associated with the changes in phase composition and development of the magnetic NiFe₂O₄ structure. The findings were additionally supported by the results of subsequent phase composition analysis using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy (MS). Nanocrystalline structure of the obtained ferrite phase was confirmed by XRD and electron microscopy analyses. The synthesized material was further magnetically characterized by room temperature hysteresis loop measurements on a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The recorded TM curves and hysteresis loop both reveal evident increase in volume of the magnetic phase and thus additionally support the prior findings.

Keywords: nanocrystalline NiFe₂O₄, DTA/TG, themomagnetic measurements, phase composition, magnetic properties.