Materials, Vol. 11, Pages 878: Fabrication of ?-Fe/Fe3C/Woodceramic Nanocomposite with Its Improved Microwave Absorption and Mechanical Properties (Materials)

Furan resin and fir powder pretreated by FeCl3 and aqueous ammonia solution were used to fabricate α-Fe/Fe3C/woodceramic nanocomposite. The bands of the pretreated wood powder were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The structural characterization of the nanocomposites was performed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The microwave absorption of the nanocomposites was measured by a vector network analyzer in the range of 2–18 GHz. The mechanical properties of the composites were also investigated. XRD and SEM results show that the α-Fe and Fe3C nanoparticles are in-situ generated and disperse in the matrix of the woodceramic. The diameters of these nanoparticles increase with the increasing of concentration of FeCl3 solution. The experimental results show that both the complex permittivity and the complex permeability of α-Fe/Fe3C/woodceramic nanocomposites increase as the concentration of FeCl3 solution increases. The composites pretreated with 0.60 mol·L−1 FeCl3 have the best absorption properties. The maximum value of reflection loss (RL) at 3 mm thickness reaches −25.60 dB at 10.16 GHz and the bandwidth below −10 dB is about 2.5 GHz. Compared to woodceramic, the bending strength and compressive strength of α-Fe/Fe3C/woodceramic nanocomposites increase by 22.5% and 18.7% at most, respectively.