Biocarbon–waste ferrite composites as microwave absorbing material: a promising approach towards a sustainable future

Abstract

Utilization of waste pollution to solve electromagnetic waves pollution is a good strategy towards a green future. In this study, we have used two different biowastes, wheat stubble and peanut hulls, as biocarbon sources to obtain two diverse inherited morphologies, i.e., sheet-like morphology from wheat stubble and distorted/ripped biocarbon morphology from peanut hulls. Detailed microwave absorption characterization analysis shows that the distorted/ripped morphology has better reflection loss and effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) as compared to the sheet-like morphology. Furthermore, \({{\text{MnFe}}}_{2}{{\text{O}}}_{4}\) particles are also used to get composites with both types of biocarbon. The minimum reflection loss (RL_mini) value achieved by the ripped biocarbon/\({{\text{MnFe}}}_{2}{{\text{O}}}_{4}\) is − 40.6 dB, with EAB being 5.6 GHz (13.2–7.6 GHz). Our findings show that better microwave absorption performance is attributed to the distorted/ripped morphology and by biocarbon–\({{\text{MnFe}}}_{2}{{\text{O}}}_{4}\) synergetic influence. These findings open a route for biowaste and magnetic waste to be used in controllable microwave absorption applications.