INFLUENCE OF THE PREPARATION METHOD ON THE STRUCTURE, PHASE FORMATION AND MAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF TEMPLATED CUFE2O4 SPINEL

The synthesis of mesoporous cufe2o4 spinel by several nanocasting strategies (i.e., multi-step nanocasting,one step nanocasting, modified solid-liquid), in which copper and iron nitrates are used as precursors and pluronicp123 as surfactant, is explored. we have also checked the effect of ph, citric acid and sodium citrate in multi-stepnanocasting method. the modified solid-liquid method which contains impregnating mesoporous silica by molten statesalts in a non-ionic solvent seems to be the best choice to obtain single phase ordered mesoporous copper ferrite. othermethods suffer from the presence of copper oxide or hematite as impurities or lack of integrity in the mesoporousstructure. increasing ph up to 9.5 does not enhance the phase formation inside the pores of the silica matrix. the citricacid yields a fine structure but does not facilitate the phase formation. adding sodium citrate neither heals the phaseformation nor the structure of the final product. moreover, vinyl- functionalized mesoporous silica exploited in thisstudy as a hard template entraps both metal nitrates in the pores, assisting impregnation procedure.