Du C.S., Yun J.D., Browning N., Pan N.
University of California at Davis, US
Keywords: Mn3O4, nanowire, template synthesis, three-dimensional
Owing to the large specific surface area and other superior properties over their bulk counterparts arising from quantum size effect, nanoscaled and nanostructured materials have attracted considerate research interest and many novel nanoscale materials have been synthesized in the past 10 years. It is well known that the behaviors of nanomaterials strongly depend on the sizes, shape, dimensionality and morphologies, which are thus the key factors to their ultimate performance and applications. Therefore it is of great interest to synthesize nanomaterials with a controlled structure and morphology. Mn3O4 is an important material due to its wide applications in the area of catalysis, magnetic material and electrode material for batteries. In this paper, we report the synthesis of three-dimensional Mn3O4 nanostructures by soft chemistry templating process using block copolymer as structure-directing agent. This 3-dimensioanl nanostructured material has a unique structure of inter-woven nanowires grown from faceted Mn3O4 nanoparticles, and the nanowires are along two perpendicular directions but are aligned in each direction. The density and length of the nanowires can be varied by controlling the aging time of the precursor sol and the growth time. We anticipate that it may provide another kind of manganese oxide with different characteristics.
Journal: TechConnect Briefs
Volume: 1, Technical Proceedings of the 2007 NSTI Nanotechnology Conference and Trade Show, Volume 1
Published: May 20, 2007
Pages: 414 - 417
Industry sector: Advanced Materials & Manufacturing
Topic: Advanced Materials for Engineering Applications
ISBN: 1-4200-6182-8