Synthesis and Characterization of rGO/Zinc Ferrite Composite Through Thermochemical Approach

Abstract

Nanohybrids of rGO/ZnFe2O4 with increasing loadings of GO for 0.0 %, 10%, 20% and 30 % with nomenclatures X0, X1,X2 and X3 were prepared by a novel one-step thermochemical route. In our current research, GO was synthesized via Improved Hummer method. Thermochemical route was adopted for the reduction of GO and synthesis of zinc ferrite nano particles onto rGO sheets. X-Ray Powder Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), Impedance Analyzer and Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) were utilized to effectively investigate the synthesized nano-hybrid. The obtained XRD patterns verified the formation of pure cubic single phase of rGO/ZnFe2O4 nanohybrid. The crystallite size for each composition was in complete agreement with the results obtained from SEM. While, SEM results showed that ferrite nanoparticles were uniformly adhered onto rGO sheets. The dielectric and charge storage properties were found to be enhanced with increased loadings of GO. TGA for X3 showed no weight loss until 778 °C, indicate its thermal stability. The dielectric constant (  / ) was enhanced from 423 for pure zinc ferrites to 2.04×10 4 for 30% GO loading at 100 Hz. The dielectric and tangent losses also increased from 2.04×10 4 , 4.56 for X0 to 1.20×10 5 , 5.86 at 100 Hz for X3 respectively.. The CV result showed increased area under the IV curve for X3 that reflect the enhanced charge storage capacity. Thermochemical method showed potential dielectric applications at high temperature. The optimum parameters and compositions need to be exploited for scalable production via this method due to its high yield benefit.