Facile preparation and high microwave absorption of flower-like carbon nanosheet aggregations embedded with ultrafine Mo2C

Rational regulation of microstructure and components is vital for excellent microwave absorption performance. In this study, we report flower-like carbon nanosheet architectures embedded with ultrafine Mo2C as a microwave absorber, prepared via simple carbothermal reduction using Mo-polydopamine as the precursor. We found that the particle size of the obtained Mo2C/C composites could be simply tailored by the added ammonium molybdate content in the initial solution for the preparation of the Mo-polydopamine precursor. This helped tailor the BET surface area, which significantly impacts microwave absorption performance. The sample with a BET surface area of 173.31 m2g−1 displayed high-efficiency microwave absorption, and the effective absorbing band reached up to 7.04 GHz (10.96–18 GHz) with the matching thickness of 2.9 mm at relatively low filler loading (only 10 wt%). Thus, the excellent microwave absorption performance and simple preparation process of the flower-like Mo2C@C composites are promising for applications requiring lightweight and broadband microwave absorption.