Development of Biobased Microwave Absorbing Composites with Various Magnetic Metals and Carbons

The preparation and characterization of a biobased electromagnetic absorbing composites derived from natural lacquer as a renewable resource with microwave-absorption fillers, including Ni-Zn ferrite and carbonyl iron (CI) as magnetic metals and soot and carbon nanotube (CNT) as carbon materials, were investigated in terms of the gel content, hardness, drying properties, and electromagnetic absorption properties. Interestingly, composites with ferrite and CI contained up to 320 and 550 wt %, respectively, of these compounds. This quite high loading capacity of the metal fillers in a natural-lacquer base could have been due to the high compatibility between the filler and the natural lacquer; this indicated that the natural lacquer worked as a binder for these metals. The morphology of the biobased composite was characterized by scanning electron microscopy. The electromagnetic absorption properties of composites were characterized in the frequency range from 0.05 and 20 GHz by the reflection loss (RL) measurement method in terms of the kind of fillers and filler loading. The natural lacquer did not affect the absorption properties of the fillers. Biobased composites showed over 99% electromagnetic absorption in the frequency range 3.0-4.0 GHz for 280 wt % ferrite and 8.9-9.7 GHz for 200 wt % CI. Conversely, 10 and 20 wt % soot exhibited good performance (RL<220 dB) between 16.5 and 17.3 and between 8.8 and 9.2 GHz, respectively. The areas with RL values of less than 220 dB of the CNT composites were 10.4-11.0 GHz for 5 wt % and 14.6-15.2 GHz for 10 wt %. Hence, natural lacquer can be used as a binder material for electromagnetic absorption composites. (C) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.