One-pot electrochemical synthesis and assessment of super-capacitive and super-paramagnetic performances of Co²⁺ doped Fe₃O₄ ultra-fine particles

Here, we report a facile and one-step fabrication of Co²⁺ doped iron oxide nanoparticles (Co-IONPs). In this procedure, Co-IONPs are galvanostatically deposited from an additive-free aqueous solution of mixed iron(III) nitrate, iron(II) chloride and cobalt chloride salts. The obtained data from XRD, FE-SEM and energy-dispersive X-ray revealed that the deposited Co-IONPs sample has composition of Co²⁺ doped magnetite crystal structure with fine particles (size ≈ 15 nm) morphology. The obtained electrochemical data showed that Co-IONPs are capable to deliver specific capacitances as high as 214.1 and 166.8 F g⁻¹ at the discharge loads of 0.25 and 1 A g⁻¹, respectively, and capacity retentions of 95.1 and 88.6% after 2000 galvanostatic charging/discharging cycling. And about 20% enhanced in the charge storage ability of iron oxide electrode was obtained through 15 wt% Co²⁺ doping. Furthermore, the results of vibrating sample magnetometer measurements confirmed an improvement in the superparamagnetic behavior of IONPs via Co²⁺ doping. Based on the obtained results, our developed one-step electrochemical preparation platform is introduced as a facile procedure for the preparation of metal ion doped magnetite nanoparticles.