Sustainable Carbon Xerogel in the Production of Electromagnetic Radar Absorbing Composites in the Ku-Band

Abstract

Carbonaceous porous materials are strong candidates for producing low-cost, lightweight, and sustainable electromagnetic (EM) absorbing materials. This work investigates the production of radarabsorbing materials (RAM) by a simple method. Sustainable carbon xerogel (CX) was synthesized from tannin, a biosourced molecule. CX and commercial carbon nanotube (CNT) were embedded in a silicone matrix at proportions of 10 and 15 wt.% of CX and 0.1 wt.% of CNT to produce flexible composites. The morphology and structure of the carbonaceous materials were evaluated by fieldemission scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), textural properties by N 2 adsorption-desorption isotherms, and mercury porosimetry. The electromagnetic characterization of the composites was analyzed by a vector network analyzer (VNA) in the Ku-band. The results demonstrated that an increased concentration of CX in the composite improved reflection loss reaching -43.19 dB at 13.79 GHz.

Electromagnetic interference shielding in lightweight carbon xerogels

“…Our carbon xerogel showed a density of 0.85 ± 0.01 g/cm 3 , similar to values reported in the literature for other carbon xerogels [29][30][31][32]. The electrical conductivity (σ) of our xerogel is 5.0 ± 0.9 S cm −1 .…”