“…In the last decade, the scientific interest towards magnetic nanostructured / nanocomposite materials has steadily increased owing to their functional properties associated with widespread applications ranging from electronics [1], magneto-optics and photocatalysis [2][3][4][5] to supercapacitors [6,7], hyperthermia [8], drug delivery [9,10], water remediation [11], energy harvesting [12]. Oxides of transition metals / rare earths have received particular attention because of the concurrence of magnetic effects and semiconducting-like properties [3,12,13] Magnetic metal-ceramic nanocomposites, consisting of a dispersion of Fe 0 , Co 0 , or Ni 0 nanoparticles into a prevailingly amorphous silica and alumina ceramic matrix, are an important sub-class of nanomaterials whose fields of application are typically associated with their porous structure, which makes them particularly suitable for use in environmental protection [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], catalysis [23][24][25][26][27][28] and biomedicine [29][30][31][32][33].…”