Highly enhanced microwave absorption for carbon nanotube/barium ferrite composite with ultra-low carbon nanotube loading

doi:10.1016/j.jmst.2021.06.032

Journal of Materials Science & Technology

Volume 102, 10 March 2022, Pages 115-122

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmst.2021.06.032 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
A facile approach for fabricated carbon nanotube (CNT)/barium ferrite (BaFe₁₂O₁₉) composite with good dispersion of carbon nanotube was developed.
•
In view of the thermal stability of CNT in different atmosphere and the formation mechanism of BaFe₁₂O₁₉, uniform dispersion of CNT was achieved in the CNT-BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composite.
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The as-prepared CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composite exhibits excellent microwave absorption ability.

Abstract

Barium ferrite (BaFe₁₂O₁₉) is considered as potential microwave absorption (MA) material thanks to the large saturation magnetization, high Curie temperature, and excellent chemical stability. The integration of carbon nanotube (CNT) can improve the dielectric loss of BaFe₁₂O₁₉ for further enhanced MA performance, nevertheless, the MA performance is still not desirable because of the poor CNT dispersion in the CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composites, which usually prepared via the ball-milling method, unless high CNT loading was used. Herein, according to the thermal stability of CNT in different atmosphere and the formation mechanism of BaFe₁₂O₁₉ from precursor, CNT was introduced in the precursor of BaFe₁₂O₁₉ uniformly during auto-ignition process and calcined under different atmosphere. When CNT loading is only 2.0 wt%, the CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composites obtained exhibits a minimum reflection loss ( $R L_{\min}$ ) of -43.9 dB and effective bandwidth (with $RL$ < -10 dB) of 3.9 GHz with the thickness of 1.5 mm, which are much superior to -10.2 dB and 2.2 GHz for pure BaFe₁₂O₁₉, and -13.6 dB and 2.5 GHz for CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composite prepared by ball-milling method. These results may pave the way to design high-performance BaFe₁₂O₁₉ based microwave absorbers.

Graphical abstract

Introduction

The development of radar and the widespread utilization of electronic device aroused the imperative development in microwave absorption (MA) materials [1], [2], [3], [4]. Barium ferrite (BaFe₁₂O₁₉) as a well-known permanent magnet with large saturation magnetization, high Curie temperature, outstanding chemical stability as well as the low cost and significant hysteresis loops, showing great application potential in MA field [5,6]. However, the low dielectric loss restrict their further improvement of MA performance and wide applications [7]. CNT has attracted much attention in recent years due to its excellent electrical conductivity, extraordinary dielectric loss [8], [9], [10]. Combining the CNT and BaFe₁₂O₁₉ nanoparticles is very attractive as MA materials in radar devices [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]. Nevertheless, most of reported works prepared pure BaFe₁₂O₁₉ firstly, and then composites with CNT by ball-milling (BM) method. For example, Afzali et al. [17] prepared CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composite with the mass fraction of CNT is 20 wt% by BM method, representing the minimum reflection loss ( $R L_{\min}$ ) of -29.7 dB and the effective frequency bandwidth (EB) of the reflection loss ( $RL$ ) below -10 dB is 3.2 GHz. Zhao et al. [18] compounds different types of CNT and BaFe₁₂O₁₉ by BM method. The optimized CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ possessed the $R L_{\min}$ of -21.5 dB as well as the EB of 2.5 GHz. Owing to this method inevitably suffers the poor dispersibility of CNT, the MA performance is still limited and the high mass fraction of CNT is required [17]. At the same time, many preparation steps limit its wider application.

Herein, CNT was introduced in the precursor of BaFe₁₂O₁₉ uniformly during auto-ignition process and calcined under different atmosphere to form CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composites [19]. This method could improve the dispersibility of the CNT and reduce the preparation process significantly. The good dispersibility of CNT in the composites results in the desirable MA property of composites. The $R L_{\min}$ of as-synthesized CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composites with the CNT loading of only 2 wt % is -43.9 dB, and the EB can reach about 3.9 GHz, which is higher than the previous reported BaFe₁₂O₁₉ based composites and the CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composites prepared by BM method. These results provide new possibilities and idea for fabricating high-performance MA materials based on BaFe₁₂O₁₉ in the future.

Section snippets

Materials

CNT (NC 7000) was provided by Nanocyl S.A., Belgium, possessing average length and average diameter of 1.5 μm and 9.5 nm, respectively. barium nitrate (Ba(NO₃)₂, analytical, ≥99.5%), ferric nitrate (Fe(NO₃)₃·9H₂O, analytical, ≥98.5%), ammonia aqueous solution and citric acid (C₃H₄(OH)(COOH)₃, analytical, 98.5%) were purchased from Chengdu Kelong Chemical Reagents Company. All reagents used without further purification.

Preparation of CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composites

The synthesis process of CNT/ BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composite was illustrated in Fig. 1.

Results and discussion

TEM images of BF and CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composites were depicted in Fig. 2. From Fig. 2(a), the agglomerated nanoparticles with average particle size about 100 nm were observed clearly, showing high purity crystalline phase of BF, which displays similar characteristics to that of BF(Air) [22,23] (Fig. S3(a)). This result indicates that BaFe₁₂O₁₉ could be prepared successfully under the condition designed in this work, and can be further confirmed by XRD and Raman (Fig. S4). When BaFe₁₂O₁₉ compounded

Conclusions

In summary, the CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composites with high level of MA ability has been successfully prepared by an effective method. Remarkably, the CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composites with only 2wt% CNTs loading shows excellent MA performance with the $R L_{\min}$ of -43.9 dB at 4.3 GHz and the EB of about 3.9 GHz. Meanwhile, the MA performance of resultant composites is well fitted with the quarter-wavelength matching model, being promising as a candidate in the field of microwave absorption. Additionally, this

Notes

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51721091, 51973142, 21878194), the The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFB0704200), and the funds of the State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing (Northwestern Polytechnical University) (SKLSP201918)

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Research ArticleHighly enhanced microwave absorption for carbon nanotube/barium ferrite composite with ultra-low carbon nanotube loading

Highlights

Abstract

Graphical abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Materials

Preparation of CNT/BaFe12O19 composites

Results and discussion

Conclusions

Notes

Acknowledgments

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Research Article
Highly enhanced microwave absorption for carbon nanotube/barium ferrite composite with ultra-low carbon nanotube loading

Preparation of CNT/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ composites