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Hierarchically porous Co/C nanocomposites for ultralight high-performance microwave absorption

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Abstract

Carbon-based composites have gained extensive attention as microwave absorbing materials due to the lighter weight compared with other materials. In this work, Co/C nanocomposites with Co nanoparticles uniformly distributed in amorphous carbon sheets are prepared by a freezing dry and carbothermic reduction process. Hierarchical porous microstructures (micropores, mesopores, macropores) are achieved by ice template and huge amounts of gas during carbothermal reduction. Excellent absorption performance is achieved at a very low Co/C content (10% and 15%), which is a great success to design ultralight absorbers. At 10% content level, the effective absorption bandwidth is 5.0 GHz with a thin thickness of 1.8 mm, while the absorption bandwidth is 4.7 GHz with a thin thickness of 1.5 mm at 15% Co/C content level. The excellent absorption performance is attributed to excellent impedance matching resulting from synergy of cobalt and carbon and strong interfacial polarization induced by the hierarchical porous microstructures. This work provides a new pathway of designing ultralight absorbers with the advantage of thin thickness and wide bandwidth.

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Excellent absorption performance is achieved at only 10% Co/C content level, a success to design ultralight absorbers.

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Funding

We received financial support from Key Research and Development Project of Shandong Province [grant No. 2019GSF109079], Postdoctoral Applied Research Project of Qingdao, the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2020M671992], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant No. 51871146, 51771108], the State Key Laboratory of Bio-fibers and Eco-textiles (Qingdao University), and the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (Grant No. 18CG56).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Bio-Fibers and Eco-Textiles, Institute of Biochemical Engineering, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao Central Hospital, Qingdao University, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Peitao Xie, Yuan Liu, Mei Feng, Mang Niu, Chunzhao Liu & Kunyan Sui

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 250061, Shandong, China

    Nannan Wu

  3. Integrated Composites Laboratory (ICL), Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Rahul Rangrao Patil, Duo Pan & Zhanhu Guo

  4. Agricultural Solutions America (APT), BASF Beaumont Site, Beaumont, TX, USA

    Rahul Rangrao Patil

  5. Key Laboratory of Materials Processing and Mold (Zhengzhou University), Ministry of Education, National Engineering Research Center for Advanced Polymer Processing Technology, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Duo Pan

  6. College of Ocean Science and Engineering, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, 201306, China

    Runhua Fan

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  1. Peitao Xie
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  2. Yuan Liu
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  3. Mei Feng
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  4. Mang Niu
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  5. Chunzhao Liu
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  6. Nannan Wu
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  7. Kunyan Sui
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  8. Rahul Rangrao Patil
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  9. Duo Pan
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  10. Zhanhu Guo
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  11. Runhua Fan
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by P. Xie. P.Xie wrote the manuscript. Y. Liu, M. Feng, M. Niu, N. Wu, R. Patil, D. Pan, and Z. Guo gave the meaningful advice in theoretical analysis and writing the manuscript. K. Sui, C. Liu, and R. Fan gave financial support and measurement support for this work. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Peitao Xie.

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Xie, P., Liu, Y., Feng, M. et al. Hierarchically porous Co/C nanocomposites for ultralight high-performance microwave absorption. Adv Compos Hybrid Mater 4, 173–185 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42114-020-00202-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42114-020-00202-z

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