Design of porous C@Fe3O4 hybrid nanotubes with excellent microwave absorption

An efficient method was developed to fabricate a porous hybridizing nanotubes structure of amorphous carbon interspersed among Fe3O4 (C@Fe3O4) with a ∼200 nm diameter and ∼70 nm wall thickness. The as-structured porous nanotubes with ferromagnetic behaviour exhibited excellent microwave absorption properties, including a strong ability to attenuate the electromagnetic (EM) wave, and they are also lightweight. Adding only 10 wt% of the as-prepared sample into paraffin can show a maximum reflection loss of -45.0 dB at 6.18 GHz with a sample thickness of 3.4 mm. The absorption mechanism, which results from its porous nanotubes structure, multi-interfaces, dielectric-magnetic integration and geometric effect, is proposed to explain the excellent EM absorption performance. Furthermore, the synthesis strategy presented herein can be expended as a facile approach to synthesizing related carbon-based nanostructures for functional design and applications.