Synthesis and Characterization of Magnetic Expanded Graphite Material (EG@CoFe2O4) Through Sol-Gel Processing

Abstract

Abstract The development of novel materials is indispensable to industrial development due to their instrumental role in medical and decontamination applications. Expanded graphite (EG) possesses a number of advantages including pore structure, non-toxicity and ease of recoverability, making it suitable materials for a wide array of possibilities in many fields. In this paper, a material composite based on expanded graphite (EG) and cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) was successfully prepared by the direct sol-gel process. The obtained EG@CoFe2O4 was then characterized using a number of analysis techniques including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The results indicated successful impregnation of CoFe2O4 into the EG matrix. The as-synthesized EG@CoFe2O4 is also uniform and possessed good crystallinity. The isotherm of the obtained EG@CoFe2O4 material seems to follow the typical type IV isotherm and the pore size of the materials ranged from 2-55 nm.