Fe@NPC@CF nanocomposites derived from Fe-MOFs/biomass cotton for lightweight and high-performance electromagnetic wave absorption applications

Abstract Electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbing materials have been extensively applied in the electronic devices and wireless communication to solve the increasingly serious problems of electromagnetic pollution and radiation. In this work, Fe-MOFs/biomass cotton derived Fe@nanoporous carbon@carbon fiber (Fe@NPC@CF) composites were successfully obtained by means of in-situ synthesis and thermal decomposition processes. It was found that the Fe@NPC composites were uniformly distributed on the carbon fibers matrix. As a result, EM wave absorbing performances were greatly promoted via the synergic effects among Fe nanoparticles, nanoporous carbon and carbon fibers. A strong reflection loss (RL) of −46.2 dB and a wide absorbing bandwidth of 5.2 GHz (RL