Dielectric and microwave absorption properties of Ti3SiC2 powders

• We synthesized Ti3SiC2 powders at different temperature.
• The powders with higher TiC had larger complex permittivity but lower dielectric loss.
• Thickness and filler content have influence on dielectric and absorption properties.
• Pure Ti3SiC2 powders are good microwave absorbents in X-band.

Ti3SiC2 powders are synthesized via vacuum pressureless sintering method. The dielectric properties of the powders synthesized at different temperature are investigated in the frequency range from 8.2 to 12.4 GHz (X-band), which suggests the remnant TiC has obvious influence on complex permittivity and the pure Ti3SiC2 powders have the highest dielectric loss. The dielectric and microwave absorption properties of Ti3SiC2 powders are studied. Both the real part (ε′) and imaginary part (ε″) increase with Ti3SiC2 concentration but decrease with increasing frequency, which presents the obvious frequency dispersion effect. Furthermore, the effect of thickness on the microwave absorption property of Ti3SiC2/paraffin mixture is analyzed. The mixture with 70 wt% Ti3SiC2 in 2.0 mm thickness presents the optimum microwave absorption property. The effective absorbing bandwidth (below −10 dB) is almost in the whole frequency range and the lowest reflection loss is −33.83 dB. The results show Ti3SiC2 powders are good microwave absorbents in the X-band frequency range.