Incandescent combustion synthesis of nanomagnetic Ni/NiO composites

Abstract

This study is the first attempt to large-scale energy-efficient production of nanomagnetic Ni/NiO composites by using the autocombustion based on leaves or extract of corchorus olitorius. The as synthesized product can be characterized by using XRD, SEM, TEM and EDX techniques. The results confirm that the as synthesized materials consisted entirely of well crystalline Ni and NiO phases. The crystallinity of both Ni and NiO enhanced by increasing amount of the corchorus olitorius. However, the corchorus olitorius - treatment resulted in an increase in the crystallite size and lattice constant. The SEM analysis confirms formation of fragile, fluffy and spongy networks. The average of grain size for the as prepared particles was found to be 45 nm in agreement with the trend of the crystallite size calculated by using XRD technique. Furthermore, changing of nature and content of the corchorus olitorius brought about progressive modifications in the magnetic properties, namely, Ms, Mr, Mr/Ms, Hc and Ka, of the fabricated Ni/NiO nanocomposite according to the structural, morphological as well as microstructural variation. The saturation magnetization (Ms) of the sample with corchorus olitorius leaves was found to be 0.2383 emu/g while the Ms with corchorus olitorius extract was found to 6.977 emu/g. This was discussed in the light of finite size, surface and interface effects. Thus, we unveil a new approach for incandescent combustion synthesis via an innate approach for corchorus olitorius leaves in the directly fabrication for different nanocomposites.