University of Kashan Journal of Nanostructures 2251-7871 12 3 2022 07 01 Synthesis of Inverse Spinel Nickel Ferrite Like- Broccoli Nanoparticle and Thermodynamic Study of Photo-decolorization of Alkali Blue 4B dye 697 710 112816 10.22052/JNS.2022.03.022 EN Ali Ameer Abd Zaid Department of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Kerbala, Kerbala, Iraq Luma M. Ahmed Department of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Kerbala, Kerbala, Iraq Rajaa K. Mohammad Department of Physics, College of Science, University of Kerbala, Kerbala, Iraq Journal Article 2022 03 15 Inverse spinel nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4 (or) NiO.Fe2O3) like- broccoli shape was manufactured as a brown nanoparticle. The NiFe2O4 preparation is done in the presence of the mixture of precursor salts in a ratio (2:1) of the iron ion with nickel ion prior to the presence of a nonpolar surfactant (hexamine). Hexamine acts as a capping agent before adding ammonia to solution; template and stabilizer via growth and storage of its powder. The solvothermal technique aided the precipitation route by using ethanol solvent at 180°C for 90 minutes to depress the defect in the prepared nanoparticle. The XRD data revealed that the NiFe2O4 peaks were wide and had a modest mean crystal size (20.13 nm). The broccoli-like NiFe2O4 nanoparticles with homogenous agglomerations were investigated using SEM- EDX analysis. The particle size is found to be 30.67 nm composing 100% of Ni, Fe, and O atoms. The - FT-IR analysis exhibited the positions of the tetrahedral site for (Fe3+-O2-) and octahedral site peaks for (Ni2+- O2-), and proved the type of NiFe2O4 is an inverse spinal structure. The NiFe2O4 has been owned as an excellent optical property with a small indirect band gap value (2.05 eV). Following this fact, this spinal can be used as a photocatalyst. The best photo-decolorization of this dye took place at pH 7 as a pseudo-first order with efficiency (98 %). This photoreaction is fast, endothermic and non-spontaneous. Negative entropy value refers to the products in this dye decolorization being more regular than the reactant (dye) structure. https://jns.kashanu.ac.ir/article_112816_0a77d31b51ec7e693a423872dcb8354d.pdf