Fabrication of nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide/MXene composite aerogels with excellent compression recovery and microwave absorption properties

The fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) graphene-based composites with low filling ratio, strong absorption strength and wide absorption bandwidth remains a great challenge. In this work, nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide/Ti3C2Tx (NRGO/MXene) composite aerogels were prepared by a facile hydrothermal method. The results of microscopic morphology analysis showed that the as-prepared NRGO/MXene composite aerogels had a unique 3D layered stacked porous network structure. Moreover, the obtained binary composite aerogels had low bulk density (11–13 mg/cm3) and excellent compression recovery. Furthermore, the addition amount of MXene had great influence on the complex permittivity, impedance matching and microwave absorption properties. When the addition amount of MXene was 15 mg and the filing ratio was 10 wt%, the NRGO/MXene composite aerogel exhibited the best microwave absorption performance with the minimum reflection loss of −62.1 dB and a broad effective absorption bandwidth of 5 GHz. The practical application potential of NRGO/MXene composite aerogels was predicted by radar cross section simulation. In addition, the probable microwave absorption mechanism of NRGO/MXene composite aerogels were also elucidated. This work was expected to provide a reference for the fabrication of 3D graphene-based composites as lightweight, efficient and broadband microwave absorbers. © 2024 Elsevier B.V.