Feasibility of as-prepared reticulated porous barium titanate without additional radar-absorbing material coating in potential military applications

For decades, porous ceramics have received much scientific and industrial interests because they possess better thermal and chemical stabilities than their counterparts, including porous polymers and porous metals. Among the numerous kinds of porous ceramics, reticulated porous ceramics have recently been prepared for various application fields. However, as far as the authors’ knowledge, the radar-absorbing properties of reticulated porous ceramics remain largely unknown, until now. Therefore, the feasibility of reticulated porous ceramics prepared using barium titanate, which has an inherently high dielectric constant, as a potential platform that could be used without additional radar-absorbing material coating has been discussed. From the results obtained in this study, it was discussed whether reticulated porous barium titanate could be fabricated with an acceptable mechanical strength and radar-absorbing properties. Quantitatively, the measured reflection loss (RL) of the 2.08-mm-thick reticulated porous barium titanate, approached − 16 dB (97.49% absorption of the radar wave) at 9.2 GHz. Meanwhile, the calculated RL of the as-prepared 2.50-mm-thick reticulated porous barium titanate approached − 21 dB (99.21% absorption of the radar wave) at 9.2 GHz.