Developing a high-performance electromagnetic microwave absorber using BaTiO3/CoS2/CNTs triphase hybrid

Toward the development of a novel electromagnetic microwave absorber, a CNTs-modified BaTiO3/CoS2 ternary nanostructure was synthesized by the hydrothermal method. BaTiO3/CoS2 nanocomposite was connected by CNTs, forming conductive networks for electron migration and hopping. An array of techniques were used to characterize the products, including XRD, BET, FTIR, Raman, XPS, FESEM, HR-TEM, and VNA. For the BaTiO3/CoS2/CNT nanocomposite, a Minimum reflection loss (RLmin) of −72.2 dB (99.999 95% wave absorption) was recorded for thicknesses of 4 mm at 4.44 GHz. Furthermore, the effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) of 6.9 GHz was obtained with a coating thickness of 1.5 mm. Moreover, the RL values for the pure BaTiO3 phase and BaTiO3/CoS2 binary nanocomposite, respectively, reach −20.3 dB and −42.5 dB. The specific RL values (SRL1t and SRL1), impedance matching (|Δ|) as well as EAB values of the prepared nanocomposite were much better than those of the previous BaTiO3-based absorbers. To explain the microwave absorbing properties, the conductive loss and magnetic loss mechanisms were thoroughly investigated.