Magnesiothermic reduction of rice husk ash for electromagnetic wave adsorption

• RN400–800 samples are potential light-weight electromagnetic absorbers.
• Carbon and SiC are considered as dominating contributions for the dielectric loss.
• Magnesiumothermic reduction extends the EM wave absorption potential of RHN.

The increase in electromagnetic pollution due to the extensive exploitation of electromagnetic (EM) waves in modern technology creates correspondingly urgent need for developing effective EM wave absorbers. In this study, we carried out the magnesiothermic reduced the rice husk ash under different temperatures (400–800 °C) and investigated the electromagnetic wave adsorption of the products. The EM absorbing for all samples are mainly depend on the dielectric loss, which is ascribed to the carbon and silicon carbide content. RA samples (raw rice husk ashed in air and was magesiothermic reduced in different temperatures) exhibit poor dielectric properties, whereas RN samples (raw rice husk ashed in nitrogen and was magesiothermic reduced in different temperatures) with higher content of carbon and silicon carbide display considerable higher dielectric loss values and broader bandwidth for RL<−5 dB and −10 dB. For RN samples, the maximum bandwidth for −5 dB and −10 dB decrease with carbon contents, while the optimum thickness decrease with increasing SiC content. The optimum thickness of RN400–800 for EM absorption is 1.5–2.0 mm, with maximum RL of between −28.9 and −68.4 dB, bandwidth of 6.7–13 GHz for RL<−5 dB and 3.2–6.2 GHz for RL<−10 dB. The magnesiothermic reduction will enhance the potential application of rice husk ash in EM wave absorption and the samples benefited from low bulk density and low thickness. With the advantages of light-weight, high EM wave absorption, low cost, RN400–800 could be promising candidates for light-weight EM wave absorption materials over many conventional EM wave absorbers.