Simple
Additive-Free Method to Manganese Monoxide
Mesocrystals and Their Template Application for the Synthesis of Carbon
and Graphitic Hollow Octahedrons
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Abstract
Mesocrystals
are of great importance owing to their novel hierarchical
microstructures and potential applications. In the present work, a
simple additive-free method has been developed for the controllable
synthesis of manganese monoxide (MnO) mesocrystals, in which cheap
manganese acetate (Mn(Ac)<sub>2</sub>) and ethanol were used as raw
materials without involving any other expensive additives such as
surfactants, polyelectrolyte, or polymers. The particle size of the
resulting MnO mesocrystals is tunable in the range 400–1500
nm by simply altering the concentration of Mn(Ac)<sub>2</sub> in ethanol.
The percentage yield of the octahedral MnO mesocrystals is about 38
wt % with respect to the starting Mn(Ac)<sub>2</sub>. The selective
adsorption of oligomers, which was resulted from the polymerization
of ethanol, acted as an important role for the mesocrystal formation.
A mechanism involving the oriented aggregation of MnO nanoparticle
subunits and the subsequent ripening process was proposed. Moreover,
for the first time, the as-synthesized MnO mesocrystals were employed
as a novel template to fabricate functional materials with an octahedral
morphology including MnO@C core/shells, carbon, and graphitic hollow
octahedrons. This method shows the importance of mesocrystals not
only for the field of material research but also for the application
in functional materials synthesis