Nickel Nanoparticle Encapsulated in Few-Layer Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Supported by Nitrogen-Doped Graphite Sheets as a High-Performance Electromagnetic Wave Absorbing Material

Herein we develop a facile strategy for fabricating nickel particle encapsulated in few-layer nitrogen-doped graphene supported by graphite carbon sheets as a high-performance electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbing material. The obtained material exhibits sheetlike morphology with a lateral length ranging from a hundred nanometers to 2 μm and a thickness of about 23 nm. Nickel nanoparticles with a diameter of approximately 20 nm were encapsulated in about six layers of nitrogen-doped graphene. As applied for electromagnetic absorbing material, the heteronanostructures exhibit excellent electromagnetic wave absorption property, comparable to most EMW absorbing materials previously reported. Typically, the effective absorption bandwidth (the frequency region falls within the reflection loss below -10 dB) is up to 8.5 GHz at the thicknesses of 3.0 mm for the heteronanostructures with the optimized Ni content. Furthermore, two processes, carbonization at a high temperature and subsequent treatment in hot acid solution, were involved in the preparation of the heteronanostructures, and thus, mass production was achieved easily, facilitating their practical applications.