Simultaneously improving mechanical and microwave absorption properties of a novel SiC_f/SiOC & mullite hybrid ceramic matrix composite

For enhanced mechanical and microwave absorption properties at the same time, the SiC_f/hybrid matrix composites were fabricated by precursor infiltration and pyrolysis (PIP) method with polysiloxane (PSO) ethanol solution, alumina sols and silica sols. As the first layer of the hybrid matrix, the SiOC ceramic was pyrolyzed from PSO solution. The remained hybrid matrix was mullite, which sintered from alumina sols and silica sols. The effects of different content of PSO solution on the morphologies, flexure strength and reflection loss values of composites were studied. Additionally, the XRD patterns, Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectrum of hybrid matrix were also investigated. With the increasingly content of PSO solution from 0% to 10 % and 20%–60% in the first infiltration-pyrolysis process, the flexure strength of composites was increased from 175.18 MPa to 301.94 MPa and decreased from 263.33 MPa to 221.30 MPa, respectively. The complex permittivity was increased with the increasing content of PSO solution from 0%–40% due to the free carbon conductive network from excessive SiOC. Moreover, the complex permittivity of SiC_f/hybrid matrix composites with 50 % and 60 % content of PSO solution was reduced due to more open porosity and broken free carbon conductive network. Additionally, the maximum reflection loss values of SiC_f/hybrid matrix composite with 50 % PSO solution were over -60 dB and the effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) of this composite reaches 3.89 GHz in the X band.