Facile manufacturing of Ni/MnO nanoparticle embedded carbon nanocomposite fibers for electromagnetic wave absorption

A type of nickel/manganese oxide (Ni/MnO)/carbon nanocomposite fibers were prepared via a facile and scalable electrospinning and carbonization approach. In comparison to the pure carbon showing a severe agglomeration, the uniformly embedded MnO and Ni nanoparticles promoted the formation of the fibrous carbon-based nanocomposites with an average diameter of 250 nm and a rough surface. The synergistic coactions of the MnO nanoparticles acting as impedance modulating mediator, the magnetic Ni nanoparticles, and the conductive, fibrous carbon with large aspect ratio and rough surface contributed to the excellent electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbing performance of the nanocomposites. The nanocomposites with a MnO/Ni ratio of 1:1 exhibited an effective absorption bandwidth of 6.5 GHz at a thickness of 2.9 mm and a minimum reflection loss of −53.23 dB at a thickness of 2.3 mm. The EMW absorption mechanisms of the nanocomposite fibers were discussed at length, which showed the importance of the multi-component building units and microstructure for achieving high EMW absorbing performance. This work thus suggested a convenient, facile, and scalable manufacturing approach for constructing high-performance multi-component nanocomposite fiber based EMW absorbing materials.