BaFe12O19/graphene/polyaniline coatings for flexible fabrics with enhanced microwave absorption

In this study, barium ferrite (BaFe12O19) was used as the basic microwave-absorbing material and compounded with graphene and PANI. Then, BaFe12O19, BaFe12O19/graphene, and BaFe12O19/graphene/PANI were mixed with waterborne polyurethane and coated on nylon fabrics by the cast coating method to prepare flexible microwave absorbing materials. The microwave absorbing performance of BaFe12O19/graphene/PANI coated fabric is significantly improved in comparison with BaFe12O19 and BaFe12O19/graphene coated fabric, which mainly comes from the synergistic effects of magnetic loss, dielectric loss, and conductivity loss. The BaFe12O19/graphene/PANI coated fabric has a minimum reflection loss value of -37.36 dB (at 13.76 GHz) and an effective absorption bandwidth of 5.40 GHz (12.44-17.84 GHz) when the thickness is 1.2 mm. Consequently, the facile preparation route and excellent performance make the BaFe12O19/graphene/PANI composite a promising candidate for efficient microwave absorbence.