The nitriding treatment of ternary nanofibers toward outstanding electromagnetic wave absorption performance

Abstract

Beneficial from the high electrical conductivity and remarkable chemical stability, transition metal nitrides have attracted widespread attention in the employment of electromagnetic wave absorption. Toward this end, Fe₄N/zirconium dioxide/carbon nanofibers composited absorber was triumphantly prepared by the combination of electrospinning, carbonization, and subsequent nitridation. After undergoing the nitriding treatment, the emergency of Fe₄N with superior electromagnetic properties, the introduction of more defects and functional groups, and the synergistic effect between each component would dramatically intensify multiple loss mechanisms, optimize the impedance matching, and improve the wave absorbing properties. Ultimately, the ternary fibrous nanocomposite realized the minimum reflection loss of −63.7 dB at 12.5 GHz with corresponding matching thickness of 2.2 mm, and an ultrabroad bandwidth up to 7.0 GHz. Therefore, this work substantiated the promising potential of Fe₄N in the practical application of microwave absorption, and shed light on the exploitation of a new generation metal nitrides-based wave absorbents.