Preparation and formation mechanism of a n-butylammonium/MnO2 layered hybrid via a one-pot synthesis under moderate conditions

The preparation of organic/inorganic layered hybrids has relied on multistep processing. Thus, shortening the synthetic procedure is important for possible future applications, but only a few studies report one-pot syntheses. In this work, we established a simple one-pot solution process to synthesize layered alkyl ammonium/MnO(2) hybrids, by stirring MnCl(2) and alkyl amine/H(2)O(2) aqueous solutions at 40 °C; the reaction concept is a chemical oxidation of Mn(II) ions in the presence of alkyl amine in aqueous solution. Furthermore, the formation mechanism of the layered n-butylammonium/MnO(2) hybrid was examined by following the structural and optical changes during the reaction, revealing that the one-pot reaction includes 3 steps; formation of β-MnOOH, topotactic oxidation of β-Mn(III)OOH to form the protonated layered manganese oxide H(x)Mn(III, IV)O(2)·yH(2)O, and ion-exchange of interlayer H(+) (or H(3)O(+)) with n-butylammonium to form layered n-butylammonium/MnO(2).