Digital light processing 3D printing of graphene/carbonyl iron/polymethyl methacrylate nanocomposites for efficient microwave absorption

Abstract

Digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing can enhance the microwave absorption performance of absorbers from the material composition and structure design. For the first time, graphene/carbonyl iron powder(CIP)/polymethyl methacrylate(PMMA) nanocomposites with various compositions of graphene and CIP were successfully prepared by DLP 3D printing technology. These newly prepared composites show enhanced microwave absorption properties. Specifically, the nanocomposite (labelled as CG4) containing 1.0 wt% graphene and 47.8 wt% CIP possesses the maximum reflection loss (RL) of −54.4 dB at a thickness of 2.1 mm, along with effective absorption (RL＜–10dB) bandwidth of as wide as 3.41 GHz 3D printing technology can enhance the higher efficiency of microwave absorbers preparation due to the rapid prototyping and little post-treatment. The superior microwave absorption performance benefits from interface polarization and proper impedance matching.