  For more than a century, electricity and magnetism have been believed to
always exhibit inextricable link due to the symmetry in electromagnetism. At
the interface, polar groups that have polar charges, are indispensable to be
considered, which interact directly with other polar charges/external
charges/external electric fields. However, there is no report on the
corresponding magnetic properties on these polar groups. Clearly, such
asymmetry, that is, only the interaction between the polar groups and charges,
is out of bounds. Here we show that those molecules with considerable polar
groups, such as cellulose acetate (CA) and other cellulose derivatives with
different polar groups, can have strong magnetic response, indicating that they
are strongly paramagnetic. Density functional theory (DFT) calculation shows
that the polarity greatly reduces the excitation energy from the state without
net spin (singlet) to the state with net spin (triplet), making the
considerable existence of magnetic moments on the polar groups. We note that
the hydrophobic groups in these molecules have no magnetic moments, however,
they make the molecules aggregate to amply the magnetic effect of the magnetic
moments in the polar groups, so that these magnetic moments can induce the
strong paramagnetism. Our observations suggest a recovery of the symmetry with
inextricable link between the electricity and magnetism at the interface. The
findings leave many imaginations of the role of the magnetic interaction in
biological systems as well as other magnetic applications considering that many
of those polar materials are biological materials, pharmaceutical materials,
chemical raw materials, and even an essential hormone in agricultural
production.
