Microwave-assisted synthesis of graphene-NiS/Ni₃S₂ composites for enhanced microwave absorption behaviors through a sulfuration method

In this work, an eco-friendly and convenient microwave-assisted synthesis technique was applied in the entire experiment course. The first obtained graphene-Ni composite possess an unsatisfactory microwave absorption capacity due to unbalanced matching nature. Then a sulfurization process was tried at different temperatures to convert Ni into NiS/Ni₃S₂, and an innovative graphene-NiS/Ni₃S₂ composite with a hierarchical architecture was fabricated under the condition of microwave irradiation. The investigation into microwave absorbing performances manifests that the absorption property of graphene-Ni can be obviously improved by sulfurization method. The results show, compared with graphene-Ni, the hierarchical-architecture graphene-NiS/Ni₃S₂ composites generated at 150 ℃ (S-150) possess excellent absorbing ability with a maximum RL as strong as − 55.1 dB at 6.0 GHz with a thickness of 2.7 mm, and the effective bandwidth covers 8.6 GHz from 2.8 to 11.4 GHz with thickness varies in 1.5–4.5 mm range. The enhanced performances for S-150 mainly derive from the synergy of superior impedance matching character, high attenuation, dielectric loss and plenteous interface polarizations.