Author(s)

Abubakar Yakubu¹, Zulkifly Abbas¹, Mansor Hashim², Ahmad Fahad³

¹Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.
²Institute of Advance Technology and Material Science (ITMA), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.
³Institute of Mathematical Research (INSPEM), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.

This study involves an investigation to ascertain the effect of sintering temperature on the particle size distribution of Co_0.5 Zn_0.5 Fe₂O₄ nano-particle. The effect of the sintering temperature towards diffusion of CoO and ZnO into the tetrahedral and octahedral sites was also reported. In this study, CoO, ZnO and Fe₂O₃ powders were mechanically alloyed to synthesize fine powders of Co_0.5 Zn_0.5 Fe₂O₄ nano-particles. The synthesized powder was then sintered at various temperatures which were employed to study the effect of sintering temperature on the materials. Further analysis was done using XRD to investigate the phases of the powder and the crystallite size using Scherrer equation, SEM and EDX for the morphology and elemental composition of samples. The XRD spectra indicated that Both ZnO and CoO powder reacted well during sintering, however, ZnO was first to diffuse into its crystallographic sites before CoO. While the particle size distribution increases as the sintering temperature increases. Amongst other findings, it was confirmed that sintering temperature affects the particle size distribution of samples and samples begin to agglomerate at temperature above 700°C.

Sintering, Temperature, Mechanical Alloy, Agglomerate, Nanoparticles

Yakubu, A. , Abbas, Z. , Hashim, M. and Fahad, A. (2015) Effect of Sintering Temperature on Co_0.5 Zn_0.5 Fe₂ O₄ Nano-Particles Evolution and Particle Size Distribution. Advances in Nanoparticles, 4, 37-44. doi: 10.4236/anp.2015.42005.