Effect of Sintering Temperature on Co 0.5 Zn 0.5 Fe 2 O 4 Nano-Particles Evolution and Particle Size Distribution

Abstract

This study involves an investigation to ascertain the effect of sintering temperature on the particle size distribution of Co0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 nano-particle. The effect of the sintering temperature towards diffusion of CoO and ZnO into the tetrahedral and octahedral sites was also reported. In this study, CoO, ZnO and Fe2O3 powders were mechanically alloyed to synthesize fine powders of Co0.5Zn0.5 Fe2O4 nano-particles. The synthesized powder was then sintered at various temperatures which were employed to study the effect of sintering temperature on the materials. Further analysis was done using XRD to investigate the phases of the powder and the crystallite size using Scherrer equation, SEM and EDX for the morphology and elemental composition of samples. The XRD spectra indicated that Both ZnO and CoO powder reacted well during sintering, however, ZnO was first to diffuse into its crystallographic sites before CoO. While the particle size distribution increases as the sintering temperature increases. Amongst other findings, it was confirmed that sintering temperature affects the particle size distribution of samples and samples begin to agglomerate at temperature above 700˚C.