Flexible composite film of aligned polyaniline grown on the surface of magnetic barium titanate/polyvinylidene fluoride for exceptional microwave absorption performance

A rational structure design is always an attractive approach for high-performance microwave absorbers. Accordingly, flexible BaTiO3@Ni-P/polyvinylidene fluoride/polyaniline (BaTiO3@Ni-P/PVDF/PANI) composite films were fabricated by growing aligned PANI on the surface of a BaTiO3@Ni-P/PVDF composite film. Morphology and structure characterization showed that uniform core-shell BaTiO3@Ni-P microspheres and the unique conelike shapes of aligned PANI were innovatively fabricated. The effect of the special structure on microwave absorption properties was investigated within the 2-18 GHz frequency range. The prepared absorbents displayed exceptional microwave absorption performances. The minimum reflection of BaTiO3@Ni-P/PVDF/PANI reached -22.56 dB at 12.72 GHz with a thickness of 2 mm, and the bandwidth that corresponded to reflection loss below -10 dB reached 4.33 GHz (11.12-15.45 GHz). The possible absorption mechanism of BaTiO3@Ni-P/PVDF/PANI was also studied in detail. Results offer an effective means to develop microwave absorbers via rational microstructure design.