Abstract
The influence of temperature on the magnetic behaviour of nickel zinc ferrite nanoparticles impregnated thermoplastic natural rubber was investigated in the temperature range of 10-300 K. Structural characterization was carried out using X-ray diffractometry and scanning electron microscopy. Hysteresis loops were obtained for pure and nanocomposite samples with different filler loadings at 10 K and 300 K using a vibrating sample magnetometer. Temperature dependence of magnetization for all samples obtained through zero-field cooling and field-cooling measurements show that the magnetization increases monotonously with decreasing temperature in case of field cooling measurement. However, the superparamagnetic behaviour through obtaining the blocking temperature was confirmed in case of zero field cooling measurement. Moreover, the width of the blocking temperature distribution was found to increase with decreasing filler content in the matrix. This result could be quite important in the biomedical applications. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.