Microstructure, electrical conductivity and microwave absorption properties of γ-FeNi decorated carbon nanotube composites

Nano-composite particles of γ-FeNi alloy/carbon nanotube (γ-FeNi/CNT) were successfully synthesized by wet chemical method. Microstructure of the as obtained nanoparticles was characterized by XRD, TEM, and EDS. The particles were then dispersed into epoxy resin to make conductive and microwave absorbing composites. Results have shown that the expected γ-FeNi nanoparticles were uniformly deposited a on the surfaces of CNTs with an average diameter of 16 nm. The epoxy based nanocomposites exhibited semi-conductive behavior and a maximum reflection loss of −15.4 dB at 16.5 GHz were obtained with thin thickness (1.6 mm) and low particles loading (2 wt%) of specimen. With similar microwave absorption strength and thickness of specimen, the particles loading used in this research (2 wt%) was much more lower than that reported in previous studies (∼30 wt%).