Super strong paramagnetism induced by polar functional groups and water

TL;DR

This study reveals that common materials like cellulose acetate and chitin exhibit super strong paramagnetism in water when agglomerated with nanoparticles, due to polar functional groups facilitating magnetic moment formation and alignment.

Contribution

It demonstrates experimentally and theoretically that polar functional groups can induce super strong paramagnetism in non-magnetic materials in aqueous solutions.

Findings

Cellulose acetate and chitin show super strong paramagnetism in water.

Polar functional groups reduce barriers for magnetic moment formation.

Magnetic moments align and amplify under external magnetic fields.

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate that some commonly used materials such as cellulose acetate and chitin which are traditionally considered to be non-magnetic show super strong paramagnetism in aqueous solutions under ambient conditions when they are agglomerated by nanoparticles. Theoretical computations show that strongly polar functional groups can reduce the potential barrier for a singlet-triplet interconversion with the help of surrounding water, inducing the magnetic moments. These magnetic moments distributed on the surfaces of the nanoparticles, which make a large number of magnetic moments gather in a very small space, greatly enhance the alignment of the moments along and amplify the effect of the external magnetic field, resulting in the super strong paramagnetism. Our findings suggest that the polar functional group may always induce paramagnetism and the magnetic effect may be universal as the electric effects since the polarization is very common in materials.