Physical Properties of BaFeO Materials Obtained Under Different pH Using Hexamine as Novel Fuel by Auto Combustion Followed by Annealing Route.

Hexamine was used as a fuel for the first time to synthesize BaFeO materials under different pH (2, 6, 8, 10 and 12) condition. Though all the combustion products exhibited mixed phases of mainly -Fe₂O₃ and BaCO₃, the annealed (1000 °C for 2 h) powders yielded good quality hexagonal BaFeO phase materials. The optical properties of these materials were investigated by Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR), near-infrared (NIR), and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopic techniques. Plate-like shaped sticks/rods of nanometric (~33 to 40 nm) edge sizes of particles are observed for the present BaFeO materials. A considerable improvement in NIR reflectivity of BaFeO materials is noted for the present method than the mechano-thermal solid-state synthesis. The thermal analysis (TGA) and ferromagnetic hysteresis loop (M-H) measurements reveal an important change in weight and magnetic parameters, respectively due to variation in pH. It is found that the present pristine BaFeO materials have feeble antibacterial activity as compared to the reported nanocomposite consists of cotton fabric coated with BaFeO nanoparticles against Gram-negative bacterium.