BaFe12O19/graphene/polyaniline coatings for flexible fabrics with enhanced microwave absorption

Abstract

In this study, barium ferrite (BaFe12O19) was used as the basic microwave-absorbing material and compounded with graphene and PANI. Then, BaFe12O19, BaFe12O19/graphene, and BaFe12O19/graphene/PANI were mixed with waterborne polyurethane and coated on nylon fabrics by the cast coating method to prepare flexible microwave absorbing materials. The microwave absorbing performance of BaFe12O19/graphene/PANI coated fabric is significantly improved in comparison with BaFe12O19 and BaFe12O19/graphene coated fabric, which mainly comes from the synergistic effects of magnetic loss, dielectric loss, and conductivity loss. The BaFe12O19/graphene/PANI coated fabric has a minimum reflection loss value of –37.36 dB (at 13.76 GHz) and an effective absorption bandwidth of 5.40 GHz (12.44–17.84 GHz) when the thickness is 1.2 mm. Consequently, the facile preparation route and excellent performance make the BaFe12O19/graphene/PANI composite a promising candidate for efficient microwave absorbence.