Composites of Zn-Co spinel ferrites and PANI: Structural, magnetic, microwave absorption characterization in 18–40 GHz

Abstract

The present research work deals with the fabrication of composites containing spinel ferrites and polyaniline as high-performance microwave absorbers. The composites were prepared by the inter-mixing of Zn-Co spinel ferrites and PANI polymer in a 4:1 M ratio using the mechanical blending technique. The sol–gel citrate route was employed to synthesize Zn-Co spinel ferrites, while the oxidative polymerization method was used to synthesize PANI. The structural, morphological, magnetic, and microwave absorption properties of the composite samples were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and vector network analyzer (VNA), respectively. The X-ray diffraction patterns indicated the crystalline nature of spinel ferrites and the amorphous nature of PANI. The magnetic properties revealed that saturation magnetization (Ms) increased significantly with the addition of spinel ferrites into PANI owing to its magnetic nature. The microwave absorption results showed that the minimum reflection loss (RL) reached up to −26.63 dB at 20.72 GHz with the effective bandwidth of 5.95 GHz in the K-band and −39.16 dB at 35.68 GHz with the effective bandwidth of 8.1 GHz in the Ka-band for composition NZP. This study indicated that the prepared SF/PANI composites can be proposed as a promising absorbent in the K-band and Ka-band.