Ternary MXene/MnO2/Ni composites for excellent electromagnetic absorption with tunable effective absorption bandwidth

It is still a great challenge to design and fabricate electromagnetic wave absorbing materials with both excellent attenuation capability and effective absorption bandwidth (EAB). Herein, cooperatively coupling the magnetic nanoparticles with dielectric matrix, ternary MXene/MnO2/Ni composites were synthesized through a facile self-assembly method. The MXene (Ti3C2Tx) was served as backbone to effectively assemble MnO2 nanorods, which was further used to support the Ni nanoparticles. The relationship between Ni content and the electromagnetic wave absorption performance of the MXene/MnO2/Ni composites was discussed to maximize the attenuation and impedance matching. The optimized MXene/MnO2/Ni exhibited a strong reflection loss (RL) of − 54.4 dB at 11.6 GHz and a wide EAB of 6.08 GHz (9.04–15.12 GHz). Importantly, a wide EAB of 12 GHz (6–18 GHz) can be tuned to low frequency range (C band) by the modification of Ni content. The combination of the dielectric loss and magnetic loss attributes to the comprehensively excellent absorption performance. In addition, the Ti3C2Tx matrix and the formation of interface between ternary assemblies will generate the interface polarization and scattering path to favor the attenuation of electromagnetic wave.