ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

Evaluation of structural, electrical and magnetic properties of nanosized unary, binary and ternary particles of Fe₃O₄, SnO₂ and TiO₂

Mahfooz-ur-Rehman, Muhammad Waseem, Wajid Rehman, Rafaqat Hussain, Shahzad Hussain, Sirajul Haq, and Muhammad Anis-ur-Rehman

Department of Chemistry, Hazara University, Mansehra, Pakistan

E-mail: waseem_atd@yahoo.com

Received: 18 July 2020  Accepted: 20 November 2020

Abstract:

In the present study, unary, binary and ternary nanoparticles (NPs) of Fe₃O₄, TiO₂ and SnO₂ were synthesized using microemulsion assisted precipitation method. For characterization we have used the X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmittance electron microscopy (TEM), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), UV–Visible and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The measured electrical properties were used to determine the resistance and conduction processes. Two-point probe method was applied for measuring the DC electrical resistivity between 303–723 K, while the vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) was used to measure the magnetic properties. The band gap study reveals that a low band gap of Fe₃O₄ compared to other nanoparticles suggests that it is more reactive than the TiO₂ and SnO₂ investigated in this study. It was observed that the electrical resistivity decreased with an increase in the temperature, indicated the increase in drift mobility. The activation energy value of ternary nanocomposites (TNC) was found higher than the corresponding unary NPs and binary nanocomposites. As far as the magnetic properties are concerned, Fe₃O₄ NPs were ferrimagnetic while the others have shown paramagnetic behavior under the applied magnetic field.

Keywords: Electrical; Magnetic; Magnetite; Nanoparticles; Ternary; Tin oxide; Titania

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.1007/s11696-020-01444-3

Chemical Papers 75 (6) 2625–2638 (2021)