2D magnetic frames obtained by the microwave-assisted chemistry approach

Microwave chemistry is becoming a very attractive synthesis technique in many areas of synthetic chemistry. In particular, the utilization of this method to fabricate nanostructured materials is a fast growing research area with immense potential. Similarly, the use of sacrificial scaffolds has been demonstrated as an effective route to achieve intricate 2D and 3D porous architectures. Here, we present an extremely fast and versatile synthetic approach based on microwave heating to fabricate complex macroporous magnetic frames using sacrificial templates. In just a few minutes, a stoichiometric and homogeneous conformal nanometric coating of superparamagnetic nanoparticles was grown onto a 2D monolayer formed by self-assembled polystyrene colloids. No post-treatment was required, the sacrificial polystyrene template was removed simultaneously as the magnetic nanoparticles formed, and large-scale structural order was preserved. © 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.