Abstract
Ni0.5Co0.5Fe2O4 (NCFO) nanoparticles were prepared by the chemical co-precipitation process using metal chloride, nitrate and acetate as precursor, after the precursors were annealed and then investigated in detail by employing X-ray diffraction (XRD), magnetic measurement and the bovine serum albumin (BSA) adsorption on the nanoparticles was analyzed by UV spectrophotometer at room temperature. XRD analysis indicates that all the as-prepared nanocrystals posses a pure cubic spinel structure. The saturation magnetization initially increases and then decreases with increasing annealing temperature, with a maximum value 67.19 emu/g at 950 °C. The coercivity also firstly increases and then decreases with increasing annealing temperature, with a maximum value of 828 Oe at 650°C. The as-prepared Ni0.5Co0.5Fe2O4 nanoparticles exhibit a good adsorbing ability for BSA and the optimized adsorption is achieved for the Ni0.5Co0.5Fe2O4 nanoparticles annealed at 750°C with grain size about 33.3 nm.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 10774030 and 11032010), and the Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 8151009001000003 and 10151009001000050).