Synthesis and characterizations of Ni0.8Zn0.2Fe2O4-MWCNTs composites for their application in sea bed logging

Abstract Sea bed logging is new technique for the detection of hydrocarbon reservoir. Magnitude of EM waves is important for the detection of deep target hydrocarbon reservoir below 4000 m from the sea floor. A new aluminium based EM transmitter is developed and NiZn (Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 ) ferrite with and with out multiwall carbon nano tubes (MWCNTs) polymer composites as magnetic feeders are used in a scaled tank. Nickel zinc ferrite plays an important role in many applications due to its best magnetic properties. Nanocrystalline NiZn (Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 ) ferrite and novel Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 -MWCNTs composites were prepared by sol–gel route. The samples were sintered at 750–950 °C and were characterized by XRD, FESEM, HRTEM and Raman spectroscopy. Single phase of Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 having [3 1 1] major peak was obtained by sol–gel method at 750 °C and 950 °C. FESEM micrographs show that grain size increases with the increase of sintering temperature and ranges from 24 to 60 nm. FESEM and HRTEM results showed coating of Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 on MWCNTs and show better morphology at the sintering temperature of 750 °C. The magnetic properties measured from impedance vector network analyzer showed that sample (Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 -MWCNTs) sintered at 750 °C have higher initial permeability (20.043), Q -factor (50.047), and low loss factor (0.0001) as compared Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 -MWCNTs sintered at 950 °C. Due to better magnetic properties, Sample (Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 -MWCNTs sintered at 750 °C) composites were used as magnetic feeders for the EM transmitter. It was found that magnitude of EM waves from EM transmitter increased up to 243% by using Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 -MWCNTs polymer composites.