Modifying the CNTs with high dielectric loss NiCo2O4 to enhance the electromagnetic wave absorption properties

Decorating the CNTs with dielectric loss material is an effective means of enhancing electromagnetic wave absorption properties. In this work, we synthesized high dielectric loss NiCo2O4 nanoparticles on CNTs through hydrothermal method. By adjusting hydrothermal time, the NiCo2O4/CNTs with different NiCo2O4 content were obtained. The nucleation and growth of NiCo2O4 nanoparticles would cause a lot of defects and heterogeneous interfaces on CNTs, which influences the conduction loss and polarization loss of CNTs. Therefore, adjusting the content of NiCo2O4 in CNTs is an efficient path to enhance its absorbing performance. When the content of NiCo2O4 is 45.05 wt%, the reflection loss of NiCo2O4/CNTs reaches -43.2 dB, and the effective absorption bandwidth can be up to 3.3 GHz. It proves that NiCo2O4/CNTs has potential to be a high quality absorbing agent.