Preparation of porous carbon nanofibers with remarkable microwave absorption performance through electrospinning

Abstract

In this research, 1D porous carbon nanofibers (PCFs) were prepared by electrospinning and annealing process. The PCFs with excellent microwave absorption (MA) performance were prepared by a simple one-route method by mixing with different amount of ZnCl2 in the precursors. During the process of annealing, ZnCl2 can promote the formation of porous structures and ZnO or Zn complexes by gasifying at high temperature. The porous structures can enhance the multiple reflections and the ZnO or Zn complexes can enhance the dielectric loss. The obtained PCFs were characterized by SEM, TEM, XRD, Raman and XPS. The PCFs with 5 wt% ZnCl2 exhibit excellent microwave absorption properties with a minimum reflection loss (RLmin) of −51 dB at 9.1 GHz and the effective band under −10 dB ranges from 8 to 11 GHz with a width of 3 mm. It is believed that this method would be a facile approach for preparing porous carbon fibers as lightweight microwave absorption materials.