Ultra-light 3D reduced graphene oxide aerogels decorated with cobalt ferrite and zinc oxide perform excellent electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness

Abstract

In this study, three dimensional interconnected graphene aerogels decorated with cobalt ferrite nanoparticles and ZnO nanorods were prepared for the application of absorption dominant electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. Because of low density, high porosity and large surface area, the graphene aerogel showed total EMI shielding effectiveness of 25.07 dB at a thickness of 5 mm, which was further improved to 42.10 dB with the inclusion of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles. The incorporation of magnetic cobalt ferrite not only enhanced the total EMI shielding of the aerogels but also improved the power absorption from ∼37.738% to ∼87.788%. By further incorporating ZnO nanorods along with cobalt ferrite nanoparticles into the aerogels, the total EMI shielding effectiveness and power absorption enhanced to 48.56 dB and ∼93.655%, respectively. In this work, the EMI shielding performances of different samples are compared and the underlying mechanism of such excellent absorption dominant EMI shielding is discussed in detail.