Ionic liquid-armored MXene aerogels: Wrinkle engineering for promoting electromagnetic wave absorption

As an emerging electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption material, MXene aerogels have garnered increasing interest in understanding how structural engineering influences their EMW-absorbing performance. However, most current research focuses primarily on the 3D architecture of aerogels, often overlooking the contribution of their internal lamellar microstructure. In this study, a simple solution self-assembly strategy was used to prepare MXene-IL composite aerogels with ionic liquids (ILs) as cross-linkers, in which the internal lamellar exhibit pronounced wrinkled morphologies. Experimental results show that the microscopic lamellar wrinkling of the aerogel can be precisely controlled by tuning the alkyl side-chain length of the ILs, thereby regulating its wave absorption performance. The optimized MXene-IL composite aerogel delivers a broad absorption bandwidth of 6.12 GHz, exceeding the performance of most MXene-based absorbers reported to date. This work achieves controllable modulation of the MXene aerogel microstructure through a simple process, filling the research gap in improving EMW absorption capability by tuning the lamellar microstructure and offering new insights into aerogel design.