Carbon cloth based flexible electromagnetic wave absorbing materials loaded with Co3O4 array and tunable electromagnetic wave absorption performance

The demand for flexible electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbing materials has increased, highlighting the importance of designing efficient and adaptable EMW absorbing materials. In this study, flexible Co3O4/carbon cloth (Co3O4/CC) composites with high EMW absorption properties were prepared via a static growth method and annealing process. The composites exhibited remarkable properties, with the minimum reflection loss (RLmin) and maximum effective absorption bandwidth (EAB, RL ≤ –10 dB) of –54.43 dB and 4.54 GHz, respectively. The flexible carbon cloth (CC) substrates exhibited outstanding dielectric loss due to their conductive networks. Moreover, the uniformly and tightly organized Co3O4 arrays on the flexible CC substrate played a crucial role in fine-tuning the impedance matching and facilitating abundant multiple scattering and interface polarization. This study proposes a promising approach to preparing flexible Co3O4/CC composites with a significant reference value for the field of flexible EMW.