Tailoring superhydrophobic PDMS/CeFe2O4/MWCNTs nanocomposites with conductive network for highly efficient microwave absorption

• The novel CeFe 2 O 4 /MWCNTs nanocomposite was fabricated via the hydrothermal approach. • CeFe 2 O 4 /MWCNTs endowed PDMS with excellent microwave absorption performance. • The combination of CeFe 2 O 4 and MWCNTs achieved a better impedance matching. • A bi-functional superhydrophobic microwave absorbing composite was fabricated. The combination of cerium ferrite nanoparticles and the multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) is exploited for the preparation of a novel CeFe 2 O 4 /MWCNTs microwave absorber nanocomposites. Considering the demands of the superhydrophobic microwave absorber, the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was further mixed with CeFe 2 O 4 /MWCNTs to achieve outstanding superhydrophobicity. The result reveals that the nanocomposite shows favorable thermal stability below 300 °C, and severe aggregation of nanoparticles got suppressed to some extent. Through the analysis of electromagnetic performance, it was found that the nanocomposite shows better impedance matching than single CeFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles and MWCNTs, and the unique hybrid architecture of CeFe 2 O 4 /MWCNTs endows the silicone coating with excellent electromagnetic wave absorption performance. Especially, the PDMS/CeFe 2 O 4 /MWCNTs coating with a mass ratio of 5:1 (CeFe 2 O 4 /MWCNTs:PDMS) shows the maximum reflective loss of −47 dB at 11.3 GHz with an effective absorption bandwidth of 6.9 GHz. Furthermore, the PDMS/CeFe 2 O 4 /MWCNTs coating also exhibited the synergic feature of outstanding superhydrophobicity. In summary, this work proposed a practical method to resolve the maintaining of microwave absorption absorbers and fabricated a highly efficient microwave absorption and superhydrophobic silicone coating, which may offer valuable inspiration for the fabrications of microwave absorption materials and multifunctional coating.