A facile hydrothermal synthesis and growth mechanism of novel hollow β-MnO2 polyhedral nanorods

Novel hollow β-MnO2 polyhedral nanorods have been successfully synthesized by a simple hydrothermal process. The morphology and structure of the samples obtained at different reaction time have been characterized by XRD, TEM and SEM. The results indicate that β-MnO2 nanorods prepared at reaction time 12 h have hollow, polyhedral structure and uniform size with the length of about 2–3 μm. At longer reaction time, the shells of the hollow β-MnO2 polyhedral nanorods were broken. After analyzing the above results, it's obvious that the reaction time has a great effect on the structure and morphology of the products. The morphology evolution of MnO2 products demonstrates that the growth mechanism of hollow β-MnO2 polyhedral nanorods could be assigned to the cooperation of oriented attachment and Ostwald ripening mechanism.

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► Hollow polyhedra of β-MnO2 were hydrothermally synthesized.
► The formation process of hollow β-MnO2 polyhedra has been investigated.
► The growth mechanism of hollow β-MnO2 polyhedra was discussed for the first time.
► Hollow β-MnO2 polyhedra form by oriented attachment and Ostwald ripening mechanism.