Journal of Saudi Chemical Society (Sep 2023)
Influence of Cu2+ substitution on the structural, optical, magnetic, and antibacterial behaviour of zinc ferrite nanoparticles
Abstract
Ferrite nanoparticles are an emerging material for industrial and biomedical applications. Herein, a simple non-aqueous sol–gel method is used to synthesize CuxZn(1-x)Fe2O4 (x = 0.0, 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75) nanoparticles. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV–Vis spectroscopy, and a vibrating-sample magnetometer (VSM) were utilized to investigate the structural formation and magnetic merits of the prepared ferrite nanoparticles. The Rietveld refinement of the X-ray diffraction pattern confirmed the formation of single-phase cubic structures with Fd3¯m space groups for all samples. The increase in cu2+ concentration in zinc ferrite nanoparticles decreases the lattice parameters from 8.4418 to 8.4368. The energy gap of cu2+-doped zinc ferrite increases from 1.89 to 2.04 eV with a decrease in particle size. MH loop revealed an increase in Ms and Mr Parameters as Hc reduces with an increase in Cu2+ concentration in the zinc ferrite matrix. It was discovered that an increase in Cu2+ content improved the antibacterial activities of Cu2+-doped zinc ferrite against all bacterial species.