Study on preparation of the core-nanoshell composite absorbers by high-energy ball milling at room temperature

Electromagnetic (EM) wave pollution has become the chief physical pollution for environment. In recent years, some researches have been focused on the preparation of nano-composite absorbers at low temperatures or even at room temperature. In this letter, preparation of nanocomposite by using high-energy ball milling at room temperature is reported. The core-nanoshell composite absorbers with magnetic fly-ash hollow cenosphere (MFHC) as nuclear and nanocrystalline magnetic material as shell were prepared by high-energy ball milling and vacuum-sintering in this paper. The pre-treatment of MFHC, the sintering process and the mol ratio of starting chemicals had a significant impact for property of composite absorbers. The results of X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), transmission electron microscope (TEM), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and vector network analyzer (VNA) analysis indicated that perfect-crystalline nanomagnetic material coating was gotten with a particle size of 12 nm after ball milling. The results show the MFHC is dielectric loss and magnetic loss too; the exchange-coupling interaction happened between ferrite of the MFHC and nanocrystalline magnetic material coating. The exchange-coupling interaction enhances magnetic loss of composite absorbers. They have a perfect EM parameters at low microwave frequency. The core-nanoshell composite absorbers have a higher magnetic loss at low frequencies, and it is consistent with requirements of the microwave absorbing material at the low-frequency absorption. The microwave absorptivity of the core-nanoshell composite absorbers is better than single material.