Graphene oxide/carbon nanotubes/CoxFe3-xO4 ternary nanocomposites: Controllable synthesis and their excellent microwave absorption capabilities

Abstract

By regulating the addition of iron source, different magnetic contents and Co:Fe molar ratios of graphene oxide/carbon nanotubes/CoxFe3-xO4 (GO/CNTs/CoxFe3-xO4) (x = 0.6, 0.43 and 0.375) ternary nanocomposites (NCs) could be selectively synthesized by one-step hydrothermal method. The FE-SEM and TEM investigations indicated that the paper-like GO, CNTs and CoxFe3-xO4 nanoparticles were well bound together to form the good three dimensional hierarchical networks, which could effectively provide more interface contacts. Among these obtained samples, the as-prepared GO/CNTs/CoxFe3-xO4 (x = 0.375) ternary NCs displayed superior electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption capabilities in terms of the optimal reflection loss value of −71.3 dB and the absorption bandwidth of 2.52 GHz. And the enhanced EMW absorption capabilities of GO/CNTs/CoxFe3-xO4 (x = 0.375) ternary NCs were analyzed in details. Therefore, a simple route was proposed to produce three dimensional hierarchical networks of GO/CNTs based NCs for simultaneous constructing more interfacial polarizations, dielectric and magnetic loss mechanisms, which was demonstrated to effectively optimize the EMW absorption performances and could be applied to design high performance EMW absorbers.