Effect of preparation methods on copper ferrite nanoparticles: A comparison between combustion and solvothermal methods

Spinels are a class of binary transition metal oxides arranged in a close packed cubic lattice with general formulation A2+ B23 +O4, where A is a divalent cation and B is a trivalent cation [1]. Because of their attractive magnetic, electronic, thermal and catalytic properties, copper ferrites have been widely used in variety of applications such as magnetic material, catalyst, and so on [2].In the present study, magnetic nanoparticles of copper ferrite were synthesized by two different routes which are combustion method and solvothermal method. At first, Magnetic nanoparticles of copper ferrite was synthesized by combustion method using stoichiometric amount of copper (II) and iron (III) nitrates with known amount of glycine, as a fuel. In the next step, copper ferrite magnetic nanoparticles were also synthesized via solvothermal synthetic route by using FeCl3·6H2O, CuCl2, ethylene glycol and ammonium acetate. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) studies confirm the spinel phase, and cation ion distribution for both methods. The copper ferrite nanoparticles which prepared by solvothermal method were structurally uniform spherical magnetic particles and display good crystallinity. The SEM images of the as synthesized samples are shown in Fig. 1.