Microwave absorbing properties of electrodeposited mixed flake-like and dendritic-like FexNi1-x alloy particles

Electrodeposition as a simple and effective method is widely used in the production of metallic materials. In this paper, we prepared mixed flake-like and dendritic-like FexNi1-x (x = 0.5, 0.33, 0.25, 0.2) alloy particles by electrodeposition in constant current mode using fluorocarbon surfactant (FS) and emulsifier OP-10 (OP-10) as the surfactants. The crystal structure, morphology and electromagnetic properties of FexNi1-x were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, vibrating sample magnetometry, and vector network analysis. The effects of different values of x on the morphologies and structures of the FexNi1-x particles were investigated. The growth mechanism of FexNi1-x from hemispherical to a mixture of dendritic and flaky structures was discovered. The electromagnetic parameters and microwave absorbing properties of the composites of the FexNi1-x were studied in 2-18 GHz. All FexNi1-x alloy particles have good absorbing properties, among which the prepared Fe0.25Ni0.75 exhibits the best microwave absorption properties, whose minimum reflection loss (RLmin) reaches - 68.64 dB at 5.76 GHz when the thickness is 3.4 mm, and the maximum effective bandwidth (RL < -10 dB) is 4.56 GHz when the thickness is 1.5 mm. The excellent microwave absorbing property of Fe0.25Ni0.75 is from its excellent impedance matching characteristics. (c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.