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Generation of graphene-based aerogel microspheres for broadband and tunable high-performance microwave absorption by electrospinning-freeze drying process

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An Erratum to this article was published on 12 May 2018

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Abstract

Despite recent progress in the synthesis and application of graphene-based aerogels, some challenges such as scalable and cost-effective production, and miniaturization still remain, which hinder the practical application of these materials. Here we report a large-scale electrospinning method to generate graphene-based aerogel microspheres (AMs), which show broadband, tunable and high-performance microwave absorption. Graphene/Fe3O4 AMs with a large number of openings with hierarchical connecting radial microchannels can be obtained via electrospinning-freeze drying followed by calcination. Importantly, for a given Fe3O4:graphene mass ratio, altering the shape of aerogel monoliths or powders into aerogel microspheres leads to unique electromagnetic wave properties. As expected, the reflection loss of graphene/Fe3O4 AMs-1:1 with only 5 wt.% absorber loading reaches −51.5 dB at 9.2 GHz with a thickness of 4.0 mm and a broad absorption bandwidth (RL < −10 dB) of 6.5 GHz. Furthermore, switching to coaxial electrospinning enables the fabrication of SiO2 coatings to construct graphene/Fe3O4@SiO2 core‒shell AMs. The coatings influence the electromagnetic wave absorption of graphene/Fe3O4 AMs significantly. In view of these advantages, we believe that this processing technique may be extended to fabricate a wide range of unique graphene-based architectures for functional design and applications.

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  • 12 May 2018

    The name of the third author in the original version of this article was unfortunately wrongly written on the first pages of the main text and the ESM.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51573149), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Sichuan Province (No. 2016GZ0224), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2682016CX069) and the Student Research Training Program (No. 2017005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials (Ministry of Education), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Fanbin Meng, Huagao Wang,  Wei, Zijian Chen, Tian Li, Chunyuan Li, Yu Xuan & Zuowan Zhou

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  1. Fanbin Meng
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  2. Huagao Wang
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  3. Wei
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  4. Zijian Chen
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  5. Tian Li
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  6. Chunyuan Li
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  7. Yu Xuan
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Correspondence to Zuowan Zhou.

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An erratum to this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1949-9.

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12274_2017_1915_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Generation of graphene-based aerogel microspheres for broadband and tunable high-performance microwave absorption by electrospinning-freeze drying process

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Meng, F., Wang, H., Wei et al. Generation of graphene-based aerogel microspheres for broadband and tunable high-performance microwave absorption by electrospinning-freeze drying process. Nano Res. 11, 2847–2861 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1915-6

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