Synthesis and excellent microwave absorption properties of graphene/polypyrrole composites with Fe3O4 particles prepared via a co-precipitation method

The microwave absorption properties of the presented ternary composites are not satisfactory and the microwave absorption properties of the ternary composites composed of graphene, polypyrrole and Fe3O4 have never been reported. Herein, in order to expand the scope of microwave absorbers, the graphene/polypyrrole/Fe3O4 (GN/PPy/Fe3O4) composites were synthesized by a co-precipitation method. The microwave absorbability reveals that GN/PPy/Fe3O4 exhibits excellent microwave absorption properties and broad absorption bandwidths compared with GN, GN/PPy and GN/Fe3O4. The maximum reflection loss of GN/PPy/Fe3O4 is up to -56.9 dB at 6.6 GHz with a thickness of 5.3 mm and the absorption bandwidths exceeding -10 dB are more than 15.1 GHz with a thickness in the range of 3-7 mm. Furthermore, our strategy confirms that GN/PPy/Fe3O4 can be used as an attractive candidate for the new type of microwave absorbers. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.