Highly enhanced microwave absorption for carbon nanotube/barium ferrite composite with ultra-low carbon nanotube loading

Barium ferrite(BaFe_(12)O_(19))is considered as potential microwave absorption(MA)material thanks to the large saturation magnetization,high Curie temperature,and excellent chemical stability.The integration of carbon nanotube(CNT)can improve the dielectric loss of BaFe_(12)O_(19)for further enhanced MA perfor-mance,nevertheless,the MA performance is still not desirable because of the poor CNT dispersion in the CNT/BaFe_(12)O_(19)composites,which usually prepared via the ball-milling method,unless high CNT loading was used.Herein,according to the thermal stability of CNT in different atmosphere and the formation mechanism of BaFe_(12)O_(19)from precursor,CNT was introduced in the precursor of BaFe_(12)O_(19)uniformly during auto-ignition process and calcined under different atmosphere.When CNT loading is only 2.0 wt%,the CNT/BaFe_(12)O_(19)composites obtained exhibits a minimum reflection loss(RL_(min))of-43.9 dB and effective bandwidth(with RL<-10 dB)of 3.9 GHz with the thickness of 1.5 mm,which are much supe-rior to-10.2 dB and 2.2 GHz for pure BaFe_(12)O_(19),and-13.6 dB and 2.5 GHz for CNT/BaFe_(12)O_(19)composite prepared by ball-milling method.These results may pave the way to design high-performance BaFe_(12)O_(19)based microwave absorbers.