Low-temperature synthesis of cubic phase CuFe2O4 powder

Abstract

The present paper reports extremely efficient and versatile route for the synthesis of cubic copper ferrite (CuFe2O4) powder, which is promising for many interesting applications such as Li-ion storage, gas sensors, catalysts, and magnetic devices. The technique uses ethylene glycol (EG) as a solvent of Cu(NO3)2 and Fe(NO3)3. It has been found that crystalline CuFe2O4 powder is obtained by rapid boiling of the solution and spontaneous combustion. This time a hotplate (300 °C) was used, and the time required for obtaining 100 mg of the final product from 50 mL solution was only 15 min. The obtained CuFe2O4 powder has a cubic structure, while the tetragonal phase is more likely to be obtained in the ordinary process. The size of the crystal is rather small, mainly because of the low-temperature process. The technique is promising, because it is rapid and uses only one simple pass. For comparison, much slower drying (overnight at 100 °C) of the same solution has been also studied. It has been found that tetragonal phase CuFe2O4 is formed by subsequent heating the dried materials up to 1000 °C.