Fe@NPC@CF nanocomposites derived from Fe-MOFs/biomass cotton for lightweight and high-performance electromagnetic wave absorption applications

Electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbing materials have been extensively applied in the electronic devices and wireless communication to solve the increasingly serious problems of electromagnetic pollution and radiation. In this work, Fe-MOFs/biomass cotton derived Fe@nanoporous carbon@carbon fiber (Fe@NPC@CF) composites were successfully obtained by means of in-situ synthesis and thermal decomposition processes. It was found that the Fe@NPC composites were uniformly distributed on the carbon fibers matrix. As a result, EM wave absorbing performances were greatly promoted via the synergic effects among Fe nanoparticles, nanoporous carbon and carbon fibers. A strong reflection loss (RL) of -46.2 dB and a wide absorbing bandwidth of 5.2 GHz (RL < -10 dB) with a matching thickness of 2.5 mm were achieved for the Fe@NPC@CF composites with a low filling ratio of 25%. Therefore, this work not only paved the way for development of biomass as a green, low-cost and renewable high-performance carbon-based absorber, but also provided a good design and fabricating concept for the composite materials of EM wave absorber. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.