Investigation of adjacent spacing dependent microwave absorption properties of lamellar structural Ti3C2Tx MXenes

Abstract Ti3C2Tx MXenes and their composites play a vital role in the research on microwave absorbing materials. Herein, the different interlamellar spaces of Ti3C2Tx MXene materials were prepared by an etching process. The dependence of the microwave absorbing properties of the Ti3C2Tx MXene nanosheets on different interlamellar spaces was studied. The complex permittivity, dielectric loss, impedance matching characteristic and the minimum reflection loss (RL) value with the variation in interlamellar space were systematically investigated. Results showed that 40% ratio paraffin-bonded composites (S3) have a strong electromagnetic wave absorption performance and large effective absorbing bandwidth. The maximum RL reaches −36.3 dB at 4.67 GHz with the thickness of 4.5 mm, ascribed to its a high dielectric loss and good impedance matching characteristics. The RL value of Ti3C2Tx MXenes is strongly dependent on the inter-lamellar space. The enhanced microwave absorption originates from the unique 2-D structure, good impedance matching characteristics, and enhanced space-charge polarization effects. This work provides a new avenue for exploring high-performance microwave absorbers based on MXene materials.