Tailored electromagnetic and microwave absorbing properties of multiscale composites by coating reduced graphene oxide over glass fiber

Abstract

ABSTRACT Through the formation of a conduction layer of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) on the surface of the insulation glass fabrics (GFs) seems to be an effective method to enhance the electromagnetic wave absorbing properties of GFs composites. In this work, the graphene oxide (GO) coatings were prepared by the layer-by-layer (LBL) method, and then they were chemically reduced to RGO coatings over GFs (RGO/GFs). The micromorphology of RGO/GFs can be adjusted by the LBL parameters, such as GO concentration, repeat times, and chemical reduction time. Furthermore, RGO/GFs multiscale composites were processed and their electromagnetic parameters and absorbing properties were characterized and analyzed. When the concentration of GO, the repeat times, and the chemical reduction time were 4 mg/ml, 6 and 95 min, respectively, the RGO/GFs multiscale composites with the thickness of 3.6 mm have better absorbing performance with the effective absorption bandwidths (≤−10 dB) of 4.2 GHz. The high absorbing performance of RGO/GFs multiscale composites can be attributed to the high conduction loss caused by the introduced RGO and good impedance matching degree. This work provided a new route for synthesizing high-performance radar-absorbing materials.