Effect of synthesis method and morphology on the enhanced CO2 sensing properties of magnesium ferrite MgFe2O4
Introduction
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which affects adversely the health and the environment and hence should be monitored. Carbon dioxide sensing is also interesting as it is useful for proximity sensing for incorporating with the indoor air quality maintenance. This requires the installation of CO2 sensors in large number. However, the currently available commercial sensors are based on infrared optics and are costly. The use of metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) based sensor would alleviate this issue. But the lower reactivity of CO2 towards MOS makes it difficult for practical implications.
Recently there have been reports on the use of silicon nanowires for CO2 sensing [1]. In addition to this, metal oxide and graphene composites have also been found useful for CO2 sensing [2]. There have been many recent reports on the use of single oxides for CO2 sensing like copper oxide [3], tin oxide [4], perovskites [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], zinc oxide [10], [11] and other single phases [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]. Composite or functionalized oxides have also been reported as potential candidates for CO2 sensing [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26]. Our group has reported using copper oxide – copper ferrite composite thin films and powder composites as CO2 sensors [27], [28], [29]. Even if ferrite have been widely studied for many different applications [30], [31], [32], [33], [34] including gas sensing [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], the use of single spinel ferrite phases for CO2 detection has rarely been explored before. Among the various ferrites, magnesium ferrite was chosen for studying the CO2 response. Magnesium ferrite is a magnetic material and finds application in deflection yokes (Mg-Zn), microwave devices (Mg-Mn), catalysis and biomedical applications and chemical sensing [41], [42], [43], [44], [45]. The chemical sensing properties of magnesium ferrite have been studied towards various gases like LPG, ethanol, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, petrol, chlorine and acetylene [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51]. However, as compared to the conventional single metal oxide materials, the chemical sensing properties of complex metal oxides towards weakly reactive gases like carbon dioxide is not well explored. Among these mixed oxides, the CO2 sensing properties of magnesium ferrite have not yet been studied.
In this paper, we report the synthesis of magnesium ferrite by two techniques, co-precipitation using oxalate precursor route and sol gel combustion. The effect of synthesis techniques on the structural, morphological, electrical and carbon dioxide sensing properties is reported.
Section snippets
Materials and fabrication process
Magnesium ferrite was synthesized by two techniques; co-precipitation with oxalate precursor route and sol gel combustion. For co-precipitation route magnesium chloride and ferrous chloride were mixed in 1.8:1 ratio (theoretical 1:2 ratio does not yield stoichiometric magnesium ferrite due to the preferential washing away of the Mg ions related to a quite high solubility product of magnesium oxalate compared to iron oxalate) in a mixture of water (60%) and ethylene glycol (40%) to form a 2 M
Structural characterization
Fig. 2 gives the XRD patterns of magnesium ferrite prepared by co-precipitation and sol gel combustion methods. All the peaks could be indexed with magnesium ferrite spinel phase. This indicates that both the powders corresponds to single phase magnesium ferrite (space group ). The lattice parameter of both samples was calculated by performing Rietveld refinement implemented in the Fullprof program. The obtained lattice parameters were 8.385 (1) Å and 8.383 (2) Å for the co-precipitated
Conclusion
In summary, magnesium ferrite nanoparticles were synthesized by two chemical routes; co-precipitation with oxalate precursor and sol gel combustion. Both these samples had similar composition and lattice parameter. However, the microstructure of both samples was different. The BET surface area of co-precipitated sample was greater (nearly twice) than that of sol gel combusted sample and consisted of elongated grains. The Air-Ar measurement performed on both samples showed that the samples
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the ANR-France [grant number 13-IS08-0002-01] and DST-India [grant number 14IFCPAR001] MonaSens project.
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