Manganese ion-assisted assembly of superparamagnetic graphene oxide microbowls

Abstract

A facile manganese ion Mn(II)-assisted assembly has been designed to fabricate microbowls by using graphene oxide nanosheets as basic building blocks, which were exfoliated ultrasonically from the oxidized soot powders in deionized water. From the morphology evolution observations of transmission electron microscope and scanning electron microscope, a coordinating-tiling-collapsing manner is proposed to interpret the assembly mechanism based on attractive Van der Waals forces, π-π stacking, and capillary action. It is interesting to note that the as-prepared microbowls present a room temperature superparamagnetic behavior.