Transition metal dichalcogenides MX2 (M=Mo, W; X=S, Se, Te) and MX2-CIP composites: Promising materials with high microwave absorption performance

The microwave absorption (MA) performance of bulk transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) MX2 (M=Mo, W; X=S, Se, Te) and their composites with carbonyl iron powder (CIP) were investigated for the first time. The results show that among the investigated MX2, MoSe2 exhibited the best comprehensive MA performance. For MoSe2/paraffin with 80 wt% loading, the minimum reflection loss (RL) value was -60.23 dB with the matching thickness of 2.56 mm, and the corresponding bandwidth with effective attenuation (<-10 dB) was up to 5.68 GHz (6.32-12.0 GHz). Furthermore, compositing MX2 with CIP by vibrating ball milling significantly improved their MA performance. For 80 wt% filler loading of WSe2-CIP-1-3, the matching thickness decreased to 1.86 mm, while a minimum RL of -68.14 dB and an effective bandwidth of 6.32 GHz were achieved. Our results demonstrated that TMDCs-based materials are promising for the potential applications as novel, efficient microwave absorbents. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.