LAUSR

The present paper reports extremely efficient and versatile route for the synthesis of cubic copper ferrite (CuFe2O4) powder, which is promising for many interesting applications such as Li-ion storage, gas sensors, catalysts and magnetic devices. The technique uses ethylene glycol (EG) as a solvent of Cu(NO3)2 and Fe(NO3)3. It has been found that crystalline CuFe2O4 powder is obtained by rapid boiling of the solution and spontaneous combustion. This time the hotplate (300 °C) was used, and the time required for obtaining of 100 mg final product from 50 ml solution was only 15 min. The obtained CuFe2O4 powder has a cubic structure, while the tetragonal phase is more likely to be obtained in the ordinary process. The size of the crystal is rather small, mainly because of low temperature process. The technique is promising, because it is rapid, and uses only one simple pass. For comparison, much slower drying (overnight at 100 °C) of the same solution have been also studied. It has been found that tetragona...