Enhancement of microwave absorption performance of cobalt ferrite by adding MXene (Ti3C2Tx) nanosheets

In this work, CoFe2O4 powders were combined with various amounts of MXene (Ti3C2Tx) through the solution combustion method for microwave absorption applications. Despite the absence of MXene reflections in X-ray diffraction patterns, the MXene sheets were observed in electron microscopy images. The CoFe2O4 nanoparticles were uniformly dispersed on the MXene nanosheets. The specific surface area increased from 57 to 83 m2 g-1 by adding 20 wt% MXene. The saturation magnetization and coercivity decreased from 44 to 35 emu g-1 and from 834 to 775 Oe, respectively. By adding the MXene, the minimum reflection loss and effective absorption bandwidth increased up to -38 dB and 5.6 GHz at a matching thickness of 1.8 mm, respectively, which was attributed to the enhancement of impedance matching by the decrease of permittivity.