Facile fabrication of ultra-light N-doped-rGO/g-C3N4 for broadband microwave absorption

“Thin thickness”, “lightweight”, “wide absorption bandwidth” and “strong absorption” are the new standards of contemporary science and technology for microwave absorption(MA) material. In this study, N-doped-rGO/g-C3N4 MA material was prepared for the first time by simple heat treatment, which the N atoms were doped into rGO and g-C3N4 was dispersed on the surface of N-doped-rGO, and its density is only 0.035 g/cm3. The impedance matching of the N-doped-rGO/g-C3N4 composite was well adjusted by decreasing the dielectric constant and attenuation constant due to the g-C3N4 semiconductor property and the graphite-like structure. Moreover, the distribution of g-C3N4 among N-doped-rGO sheets can produce more polarization effect and relaxation effect by increasing the lamellar spacing. Furthermore, the polarization loss of N-doped-rGO/g-C3N4 could be increased successfully by doping N atoms and g-C3N4. Ultimately, the MA property of N-doped-rGO/g-C3N4 composite was optimized significantly, with a loading of 5 wt%, the N-doped-rGO/g-C3N4 composite exhibited the RLmin of −49.59 dB and the effective absorption bandwidth could reach 4.56 GHz when the thickness was only 1.6 mm. The “thin thickness”, “lightweight”, “wide absorption bandwidth” and “strong absorption” of MA material are actually achieved by the N-doped-rGO/g-C3N4.