Strengthening the ferroelectric properties in the three-component multiferroic ceramic composites

•A new solution for obtaining multiferroic ceramic composites (by connecting two ferroelectric PZT-based and BaTiO3 materials and zinc-nickel ferrite material) was presented.•The use of two ferroelectric materials enhances the ferroelectric properties of multiferroic composites. The ferroelectric hysteresis loops show high saturation.•At room temperature the BPF composite materials have both, electrical and magnetic properties.•The magnetic properties of composite samples depend on the amount of ferrite in the composition. The paper proposes a new solution for obtaining multiferroic ceramic composites by connecting two ferroelectric ceramic materials of the PbZrTiO3-based (P) and BaTiO3 (B) (in an equal amount, i.e., 50/50) and the zinc-nickel ferrite (F) material. The main purpose of the experiment is to improve the ferroelectric performance of the multiferroic composites using the free sintering method (pressureless). Three multiferroic composite materials (BPF) with the content of ferroelectric/magnetic 95/05, 90/10, and 85/15 were obtained. The crystal structure, electrical behaviours, as well as the dielectric, ferroelectric, and magnetic characteristics of the multiferroic ceramic composites were investigated in detail. The research has proven that using two ferroelectric materials improves the ferroelectric properties of multiferroic composites (spontaneous polarization is in the range of 5.10–7.80 µC/cm2, whereas remnant polarization in the range of 2.37–4.05 µC/cm2). The ferroelectric hysteresis loops exhibited high saturation, while the electrical breakdown strength of the composite samples is very high. Also, the entire set of physical parameters of the multiferroic composite remains high. The permittivity at room temperature is in the range (800–1230), the tangent loss value in the range (0.016–0.022), and the spontaneous magnetization in the range (1.5–0.04 emu/g). The magnetic properties of the composite samples depend on the amount of ferrite in the composition, and are the highest for the composition with the highest amount of ferrite. [Display omitted]