Room‐temperature ferromagnetic organic magnets derived from fluoro‐graphite via facile halide exchange

Abstract Room‐temperature ferromagnetic organic magnet is developed via a facile halide exchange process using fluoro‐graphite (FG) as a starting material. Structural and chemical analysis reveals that heterogeneous C–F bond cleavage in the defect sites of FG is essentially related to the formation of ferromagnetic hydroxyl‐graphene (HG). Pyrolysis of FG in a polar solvent with iodine ions induces a formation of metastable C–I bond and subsequent replacement of the I sites with the hydroxyl groups. Specifically, defective sites can be formed in FG due to nucleophile attack where the OH groups can be easily generated. As a result, the FG can be transformed into the HG with a network of sp ² ‐conjugated carbon motifs in a sp ³ ‐based graphene matrix. Hence, the paramagnetic centers in the π‐electron system of FG can be transformed to the long‐range ordered ferromagnetic centers in the sp ² ‐conjugated system of HG. Electron paramagnetic resonance data demonstrate the weak ferromagnetic property of HG stable at room temperature.