Facile size-controllable synthesis of single crystalline \b{eta}-MnO2 nanorods under varying acidic strengths

TL;DR

This paper presents a straightforward hydrothermal method to synthesize single crystalline beta-MnO2 nanorods with controllable sizes by varying acid strength, which exhibit ferromagnetism and high catalytic activity for oxygen reduction.

Contribution

It introduces a simple one-pot synthesis technique to control the size of beta-MnO2 nanorods through acid molarity variation, enabling tailored magnetic and catalytic properties.

Findings

Nanorod size can be tuned from micro to nanoscale by adjusting acid molarity.

Synthesized nanorods show soft ferromagnetic behavior.

High catalytic activity with an onset potential of -0.17V for ORR.

Abstract

A simple one-pot hydrothermal synthesis of single crystalline beta-MnO2 nanorods with diameters in the range of 10-40nm is reported. During the synthesis process, the acid molarities were varied from 1.1M down to 0.2M in steps of 0.3M while keeping the other reaction parameters constant, resulting in gradual transformation of the size of beta-MnO2 from micro to the nanoscale dimension. The as-synthesized nanorods exhibit soft ferromagnetic behavior and possess a high catalytic activity with an onset potential of -0.17V in facilitating the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR).