Controlled synthesis of Fe3O4@SnO2/RGO nanocomposite for microwave absorption enhancement

A ternary nanocomposite of Fe3O4@SnO2/reduced graphene oxide (RGO) with different contents of SnO2 nanoparticles was synthesized by a simple and efficient three-step method. The transmission electron microscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy characterization display that plenty of Fe3O4@SnO2 core–shell structure nanoparticles are well distributed on the surface of RGO sheets. The X-ray diffractograms show that the products consist of highly crystallized cubic Fe3O4, tetragonal SnO2 and disorderedly stacked RGO sheets. The magnetic hysteresis measurement reveals the ferromagnetic behavior of the products at room temperature. The microwave absorption properties of paraffin containing 50 wt% products were investigated at room temperature in the frequency range of 2–18 GHz by a vector network analyzer. The electromagnetic data show that the maximum reflection loss is −45.5 dB and −29.5 dB for Fe3O4@SnO2/RGO-1 and Fe3O4@SnO2/RGO-2 nanocomposite, respectively. Meanwhile, the reflection loss less than −10 dB is up to 14.4 GHz and 13.8 GHz for Fe3O4@SnO2/RGO-1 and Fe3O4@SnO2/RGO-2 nanocomposite, respectively. It is believed that such nanocomposite could be used as promising microwave absorbers.