The latest research article, “ 'Tree blossom' Ni/NC/C composites as high-efficiency microwave absorbents”, was published online by the internationally renowned Journal Chemical Engineering Journal. The achievement was completed by the research team led by Professor Xia Li (the corresponding author) of the Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System (DOMES) of Ocean University of China.Yu Zhou is the first author of this achievement.

        Precursors of a nickel-based metal-organic framework, denoted Ni-MOF, and the loofah plant were prepared by the microwave method, and “tree blossom” Ni/Nitrogen doped Carbon (NC)/ Carbon (C) composites were prepared by in situ pyrolysis under an argon atmosphere. During pyrolysis, the morphology, specific surface area, porous structure and electromagnetic parameters of the Ni/NC/C composites were adjusted by adjusting the pyrolysis temperature. The maximum reflection loss of the corresponding Ni/NC/C composites can reach -63.1dB at 13.84 GHz and a thickness of 2 mm when the pyrolysis temperature was 650℃ and the filling amount was 16 wt%. And the effective absorption bandwidth was 35.44 GHz when the thickness was adjusted from 1mm to 5.5 mm within the range of 2-40 GHz. Excellent performance comes from conduction loss, dipole and interface polarization, magnetic resonance, multiple electromagnetic reflections and scattering, and equilibrium impedance matching.

Fig. Precursor of Ni/NC/C and its preparation process.