Substituted effect of Al3+ on structural, optical, magnetic and photocatalytic activity of Ni ferrites

Abstract Al-substituted nickel ferrite NiAl x Fe 2−x O 4 , where x = (0.00, 0.05, 0.10 and 0.15) synthesized through chemical co-precipitation method were investigated for their structural, morphological, optical and magnetic characterization. Al 3+ substitution plays a significant role in the properties of the ferrite nanoparticles. The TGA showed three mass losses, whereas DTA resulted in three endothermic peaks. Rietveld refined XRD revealed the development of single phase cubic spinel with crystallite sizes around 28–36 nm for aluminum substituted samples. TEM and SEM analysis showed the monodispersion and cubic-like nanostructure. The room temperature infra-red spectra showed the features of higher and lower energy bands detected at ν1 ∼589–595 cm −1 and ν2 ∼405–409 cm −1 , respectively corresponded to octahedral vibration (O-band) and tetrahedral (T-band) complexes that also verify the creation of spinels ferrites. The Raman spectra showed five Raman active modes (A 1g  + E g  + 3T 2g ) which are estimated in the spinel structure. The optical study showed that the compounds have an optical band gap between 1.60 and 1.89 eV. Mossbauer spectra elucidate the nature of the phases and cation distribution. From the hysteresis loop, it is clear that the synthesized samples can be control, for the NiAl x Fe 2-x O 4 nanoferrites. The photocatalytic activity of Al-substituted nickel ferrite were studied based on the degradation of methyl orange as a model compound, where the results showed that NiAl 0.15 Fe 1.85 O 4 a good photocatalytic activity.