Electrospinning fabrication and enhanced microwave absorption properties of nickel porous nanofibers

Abstract

One-dimensional Ni porous nanofibers (Ni PNFs) were prepared through a facile electrospinning followed by hydrogen reduction process, and their electromagnetic characteristics and microwave absorbing properties were investigated. Benefiting from the unique microstructure, three-dimensional conductive network and multiple attenuation forms, Ni PNFs exhibit remarkably increased dielectric loss capacity and improved impedance matching level relative to Ni nanoparticles. Consequently, Ni PNFs offer a significantly enhanced microwave absorption property with a minimum reflection loss (RL) of −40.4 dB at a relatively low filling ratio of 30 wt% and an effective absorption bandwidth (RL<−10 dB) of 4.6 GHz (8−12.6 GHz). Our results demonstrate that the microstructure and morphology of materials have considerable influence on their electromagnetic performances and the as-obtained Ni PNFs can be a promising candidate for lightweight and high-efficiency microwave absorption or electromagnetic shielding.