Flexible, hydrophobic SiC ceramic nanofibers used as high frequency electromagnetic wave absorbers

In this paper, flexible hydrophobic SiC ceramic nanofibers have been successfully fabricated via electrospinning and subsequent high temperature heat treatment. The synthesized SiC ceramic nanofibers show excellent flexibility without any breakage even under a bending angle of 142.6°, and high hydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 149.05°. The SiC nanofibers exhibit excellent electromagnetic (EM) wave absorption properties with an effective absorption bandwidth (reflection loss (RL) <−10 dB, 90% EM wave absorbed) of 4–18 GHz. The maximum reflection loss of SiC ceramic nanofibers reaches −19.4 dB at 5.84 GHz. In addition, the nanofibers are environmentally stable in 2 mol/L NaOH solution for 2 h and high temperature of 500 °C in air atmosphere. The excellent EM wave absorption performance, flexibility, hydrophobic properties, corrosion resistant properties in alkali environment and high temperature stability make SiC ceramic nanofibers to be a potential candidate for EM wave absorption used in harsh environment.