High Microwave Absorption of Nano-Fe₃O₄ Deposited Electrophoretically on Carbon Fiber

Abstract

Production of magnetite (nano-Fe₃O₄)-coated carbon fibers (MCCFs) composites using the electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique has been investigated in the present research. Fe₃O₄ nano-powder was synthesized by the reduction of Fe (III)-tri-ethanolamine (TEA) in an aqueous alkaline solution. By the deposition of nano-Fe₃O₄ particles distributed stably in a suspension on the surface, a uniform and compact Fe₃O₄ thin-film was fabricated on nitric acid-treated carbon fiber. According to the results, the strongest reflection loss (RL) of MCCFs was recognized to be −11 dB at 10.37 and 11.4 GHz for a layer of 1.7 mm in thickness. EPD was introduced as a suitable method for the production of MCCFs due to its low cost, easy productivity and time efficiency as well as the high absorption properties of the resulting MCCFs compared with the previous reported works.

Keywords:

• Carbon material
• Deposition
• Electrophoretic
• Fe₃O₄
• Magnetic material
• Nano-powder