Combustion-Assisted construction of Defect-Enriched hierarchical carbon composites towards efficient Low-Frequency electromagnetic wave absorption
Yongpeng Zhao, Yongpeng Zhao, Qingxu He, Mengmeng Liu, Jiumin Cheng, Hui Huang, Yang Zhao, Yang Zhao, Yuchao Wang, Gangjin Huang, Lijia Xu, Gehong Su, Xin Kou
Abstract
Due to the high intrinsic conductivity of graphitized carbon-based composite materials, it induces a serious skin effect of incident electromagnetic waves, which deteriorates impedance matching and limits the wave absorption performance in the low-frequency regions. The introduction of defects can change the electrical and physical and chemical properties of carbon-based materials, affect the density of skin current, and thereby improve the overall performance of carbon-based absorbers. Therefore, it is important to develop a simple, low-cost, and fast preparation method for defect-rich structures. Herein, the defect-enriched hierarchical composites have been synthesized successfully via the soaking-burning-annealing process. The combustion treatment introduced numerous defects and oxygen vacancies while inducing a non-graphitization transition that reduced conductivity and improved electromagnetic balance in the low-frequency region. As expected, the charred sample exhibited notable enhancements in reflection loss (RL) and the effective absorption bandwidth within the low-frequency range of 2–8 GHz. The value of RL reached −52.2 dB, marking a 199 % increase over the unburned sample, while the effective absorption bandwidth increased by 28 % to 2.70 GHz. Even at a filling rate of only 10 %, the RL min values of the optimal sample were lower than −30 dB across the S, C, X, and Ku bands . Additionally, the combination-induced defects led to phonon scattering, thereby reducing the thermal conductivity of the material. Thus, combustion can enhance the low-frequency microwave properties and thermal insulation of carbon-layered composites.