Fabrication of nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide/hollow copper ferrite composite aerogels as lightweight, thin and high-efficiency electromagnetic wave absorbers in the X band.

The development of lightweight, thin and high-efficiency electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbers remains a huge challenge in the field of EM absorption. Graphene aerogels with three-dimensional (3D) network structure and low bulk density have been considered as potential EM absorbing materials. In this work, nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide/hollow copper ferrite (NRGO/hollow CuFeO) composite aerogels were fabricated by the three-step method of solvothermal reaction, hydrothermal self-assembly and calcination treatment. The as-prepared composite aerogels had a unique 3D hierarchical porous network structure. Furthermore, results demonstrated that the EM absorption performance of attained composite aerogels could be improved by adjusting the calcination temperature. Notably, the obtained composite aerogel calcined at 400.0 ℃ exhibited the best EM absorption performance. When the loading ratio was as low as 15.0 wt%, the minimum reflection loss reached up to -54.5 dB with a matching thickness of 2.0 mm, and the maximum effective absorption bandwidth of 5.0 GHz could be achieved under an extremely thin thickness of 1.6 mm. Additionally, the probable EM attenuation mechanisms of attained composite aerogels were proposed. The results of this work could be helpful for developing graphene-based 3D composites as lightweight, thin and high-efficiency EM wave absorbers.