Interfacial design of Ti3C2Tx/TiO2/CoFe2O4/Co3Fe7 nanocomposites for enhanced electromagnetic wave absorption

Abstract

The electromagnetic wave absorption (EMA) capabilities of nanocomposites are significantly influenced by their interface structure, and one useful method for improving the EMA properties is to create a variety of heterogeneous interfaces. In view of this, a Ti3C2Tx with misaligned stacking structure (ST) was achieved through a suitable oscillation-ultrasonication treatment firstly in this work. Then the CoFe2O4 (CFO) nanoparticles with magnetism were in-situ grown in the interlayers of the Ti3C2Tx. Finally, the obtained Ti3C2Tx-CoFe2O4 (ST-CFO) nanocomposite was thermally reduced to generate a multicomponent nanocomposite Ti3C2Tx/TiO2/CoFe2O4/Co3Fe7 (ST-CFO-A) with abundant heterogeneous interfaces. It is found that the oscillation, ultrasonication and in-situ growth processes ensure sufficient contact between ST and CFO, and the thermal reduction treatment leads to the formation of two new phases, i.e., TiO2 with low-dielectric constant and Co3Fe7 with high permeability, resulting in the successful construction of rich heterogeneous interfaces. As a result, the ST-CFO-A exhibits outstanding electromagnetic absorbing performance of −49.04 dB (9.4 GHz, thickness of 1.6 mm), which is 24.52 and 1.86 times higher than that of the ST and ST-CFO, respectively. The goal of this work is to improve the electromagnetic absorption capabilities of Mxene-based materials by creating many heterogeneous interfaces through interfacial design.