Fabrication of rectangular zirconium dioxide nanoparticles decorated reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites as thin and high-efficiency electromagnetic wave absorbers

Abstract

The design and development of graphene-based composites with strong absorption, wide bandwidth and thin thickness remain a great challenge in the field of electromagnetic (EM) absorption. In this work, reduced graphene oxide/zirconium dioxide (RGO/ZrO2) nanocomposites were synthesized by a one-pot hydrothermal route. Results of micromorphology analysis showed that the attained nanocomposites had a good dispersion of particles, and a large number of rectangular ZrO2 nanoparticles were almost uniformly distributed on the crumpled surfaces of thinly flake-like RGO. Moreover, the EM absorbing properties of as-prepared binary nanocomposites could be regulated by adjusting the contents of RGO and matching thicknesses. It was noteworthy that the attained RGO/ZrO2 nanocomposite with the content of RGO of 22.3 wt% and a filler loading ratio of 45 wt% presented the best EM absorption performance, i.e. the minimum reflection loss reached up to −56.9 dB at the frequency of 13.4 GHz with a matching thickness of 2.02 mm, and the broadest effective absorption bandwidth achieved 5.5 GHz under a very thin thickness of 1.85 mm. Furthermore, the possible EM loss mechanism had been proposed. These results could provide a reference for the fabrication of RGO-based composites as thin and high-efficient EM wave absorbers.