Synthesis of fish skin-derived 3D carbon foams with broadened bandwidth and excellent electromagnetic wave absorption performance

The novel three-dimensional (3D) co-doped carbon foam was fabricated via a facile hydrothermal and subsequent pyrolysis process using fish skin as carbon precursor. The fish-derived carbon foam (CFs) obtained at 650 °C (CFs-650) possesses large specific surface area of 1369.3 m2/g with natural inherited micropore-dominate porosity. Moreover, the heteroatoms O and N in the fish skin are uniformly planted into the carbon frameworks, which is highly advantageous for the attenuation of microwave energy. The unique architecture endows the 3D carbon foam with impressive microwave absorbing property. Especially, the broadest bandwidth (RL < −10 dB) of CFs-650 can be up to 8.6 GHz (9.4–18 GHz) at 3 mm with the minimum reflection loss (RL) of −33.5 dB. The optimal RL of CFs-650 is −52.6 dB at 15.8 GHz with the matching thickness of 2.6 mm. The mechanism of the microwave absorption of the carbon foam is attributed to electric conductive loss, interfacial polarization relaxation, multiple reflections and scattering. The low-cost and eco-friendly carbon foam has great potential for application of microwave absorption.