LAUSR

Abstract Zinc ferrite (ZnF) nanoparticles have been the latest topic with a keen interest in the medical field and industries by virtue of their unique superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature. Many synthesis methods and different doping materials have been used to enhance the particle size for these applications. This work reports a comparison of ZnF as-prepard and PEG-mediated ZnF nanoparticles. A powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy confirms the formation of single-phase cubic spinel structure with PEG-ZnF showing the broadest peaks. The average particle size increases from 23.8 nm to 29.5 nm for ZnF and PEG-ZnF nanoparticles respectively. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) confirmed the formation of pure phase ferrites and the presence of metal oxide bands. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows the formation of spherical shape with a reduced size from 22.5  ±  19.6 nm to 19.5  ±  2.9 nm after the mediation of PEG and sintering. The phase purity of PEG-ZnF was confirmed by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The magnetic properties confirmed by a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), showed that the two samples exhibit superparamagnetic behavior with small saturation magnetization for PEG-ZnF than ZnF. The moderate crystallite size, uniform morphology with 15% polydispersity index and low saturation magnetization makes PEG-ZnF a nanoparticle that is good for sundry applications.