Hydrothermal Synthesis and Characterisation of Mn2O3 Nanowires

In this Letter, we reported the facile synthesis of manganese (III) oxide (Mn2O3) nanowires via the facile hydrothermal treatment in the presence of ammonia, which were prepared simply by hydrothermal treatment of commercial bulky Mn2O3 crystals at 160 oC for 24 h. The obtained Mn2O3 products consist a large quantity of nanwires with the diameters of 30-90 nm, and lengths ranging from 1 to 10 μm. Such high quality nanowires with high aspect ratio have a variety of promising applications. The simplicity of hydrothermal process, cheapness, and availability of raw materials, without the need of catalyst or template, are advantages favoring industrial manufacturing in scaled-up process by the novel method. X-ray and transmission electron microscopy, electron diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy have been employed to characterize these materials. In addition, the possible growth mechanism of the Mn2O3 nanowires was also proposed. The growth of Mn2O3 nanowires occurred via a dissolution-recrystallization process.