Synergy of Miniemulsion and Solvothermal Conditions for the Low-Temperature Crystallization of Magnetic Nanostructured Transition-Metal Ferrites

Crystalline first-row transition-metal (Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, and Zn) ferrites were prepared by an unprecedented synergetic combination of miniemulsion synthesis and solvothermal route, pursuing unconventional conditions in terms of space confinement, temperature, and pressure. This synergy allowed for obtaining six different crystalline ferrites at much lower temperature (i.e., 80 °C) than usually required and without any postsynthesis thermal treatment. X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed that analogous ferrites synthesized by miniemulsion at ambient pressure or in bulk (i.e., from an aqueous bulk solution and not in the confined space of the miniemulsion droplets) either at ambient pressure or under solvothermal conditions did not result in comparatively highly crystalline products. To follow the structural evolution at local level as a function of reaction time and depending on the synthesis conditions, X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) was used to determine the cation distribution in these structures. W...