Lightweight and high-strength SiC/MWCNTs nanofibrous aerogel derived from RGO/MWCNTs aerogel for microwave absorption

Abstract

Developing Silicon carbide (SiC) -based materials with the characteristics of “lower filling ratio, thinner matching thickness, lighter material mass, and better microwave absorption performance” is an important focus of current research. In this work, SiC/Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) nanofibrous aerogel was prepared using a selective in situ derivatization strategy with Reduced Graphene Oxide (RGO)/MWCNTs aerogels as templates. It is found that when the filling ratio is only 15 %, the minimum reflection loss of the aerogel can reach −57.36 dB. When the matching thickness is only 1.5 mm, the effective microwave absorption bandwidth can reach 3.34 GHz. Moreover, the aerogel exhibits good multi-band microwave absorption performance, significantly reducing the radar cross section (RCS) in C-band, X-band, and Ku-band. In addition, the aerogel features low density and high mechanical strength, with a density as low as 0.046 g/cm3, and specific strength and specific modulus of 4.35 kN·m/kg and 12.39 kN·m/kg, respectively. This work not only provides a new synthesis strategy for the preparation of novel silicon carbide/carbon-based materials, but also contributes to the development of light-weight, high-strength and high-performance microwave absorbing materials.