Facile synthesis of the one-dimensional flower-like yolk-shell Fe3O4@SiO2@NiO nanochains composites for high-performance microwave absorption

One-dimensional (1D) microwave absorbers have attracted wide attention in the field of microwave absorption (MA) because of the significant anisotropy and great dielectric attenuation of 1D architecture. In this work, the novel 1D flower-like yolk-shell Fe3O4@SiO2@NiO (FSN) nanochains have been fabricated through a modified Stober and a simple hydrothermal method. The unique 1D flower-like yolk-shell architectures have large surfaces, multiple interfaces and void spaces. Benefitting from these advantages, the FSN nanochains showed excellent MA properties. Compared with the sample loaded with 10 wt% 1D flower-like yolk-shell FSN nanochains, the sample loaded with 30 wt% showed strong MA performance with a minimum reflection loss (RL) value of -54.28 dB (12.9 GHz) and an effective absorption bandwidth of 4.0 GHz (11.05-15.05 GHz) at the thickness of 2.54 mm. The 1D flower-like yolk-shell FSN nanochains with strong absorption, broad absorption bandwidth and thin layers, provided a new method for fabricating 1D MA materials and will become the promising candidates in the practical MA fields. (C) 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V.