Citrate-promoted dissolution of nanostructured manganese oxides: Implications for nano-enabled sustainable agriculture
Wei Chen , Di Fu , Lin Duan , Xiaoyan Li , Chuanjia Jiang , Tong Zhang
DOI:10.1016/j.jes.2022.03.009
Received December 18, 2021,Revised , Accepted March 04, 2022, Available online March 14, 2022
Volume 35,2023,Pages 492-498
Nanostructured manganese oxides (nano-MnOx) have shown great promises as versatile agrochemicals in nano-enabled sustainable agriculture, owing to the coupled benefits of controlled release of dissolved Mn2+, an essential nutrient needed by plants, and oxidative destruction of environmental organic pollutants. Here, we show that three δ-MnO2 nanomaterials consisting of nanosheet-assembled flower-like nanospheres not only exhibit greater kinetics in citrate-promoted dissolution, but also are less prone to passivation, compared with three α-MnO2 nanowire materials. The better performance of the δ-MnO2 nanomaterials can be attributed to their higher abundance of surface unsaturated Mn atoms–particularly Mn(III)–that is originated from their specific exposed facets and higher abundance of surface defects sites. Our results underline the great potential of modulating nanomaterial surface atomic configuration to improve their performance in sustainable agricultural applications.
