Constructing a nitrogen-doped carbon and nickel composite derived from a mixed ligand nickel-based a metal–organic framework toward adjustable microwave absorption

The rational design of nanostructures for absorbers has great potential in the microwave absorption field. In this work, a mixed ligand nickel metal-organic framework (ML-Ni MOF) was first prepared by the self-assembly of pyrazine and 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid with nickel ions. Then, the as-prepared ML-Ni MOF was used as a precursor to fabricate a nitrogen-doped carbon and nickel composite (ML-Ni/C). With the molar ratio of pyrazine and 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid of 1 : 1, the flower-like ML-Ni MOF was obtained. After pyrolysis, the ML-Ni MOF-derived ML-Ni/C composite showed an optimal reflection loss value of -65.33 dB with a thickness of 2.4 mm and a corresponding effective absorbing bandwidth (EAB, RL ≤ -10 dB) of 5.1 GHz. Besides, the broadest EAB of 7.6 GHz was achieved when the thickness was about 2.8 mm. This strategy paves a new way to design novel MOFs as precursors for fabricating absorbers.