Influence of graphene nanoplatelet content on the electromagnetic and microwave absorbing properties of BiFeO3/GNP/epoxy composites

Ternary composites of BiFeO3/graphene nanoplatelet (GNP)/epoxy composites were synthesized and its electromagnetic and microwave absorbing properties were studied; the main absorbing mechanism was illustrated. The phase, microstructure, and microwave absorbing properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, and vector network analyzer. The results indicated that the BiFeO3 was successfully synthesized and the GNP was uniformly distributed in the composites, and the complex permittivity of BiFeO3/GNP/epoxy composites increased with increasing the GNP content due to the interface polarization and conductance loss. The minimum reflection loss value was reached to − 45 dB at 9.25 GHz with the thickness of 1.4 mm when the GNP content was 2 wt%, and also the absorbing properties of (BiFeO3+GNP)/epoxy composites can be tailored by the GNP content and composite thickness, which may be used as a kind of absorbing materials with good absorbing performance and low density.