Glass fabric@cobalt core-shell composites: Electroless plating fabrication and their enhanced magnetic properties

•Glass fabric@cobalt composites were prepared via electroless plating.•The cobalt layer is compact, uniform, and continuous.•They possessed a saturation magnetization of 65 emu/g and coercivity of 250 Oe.

Glass fabric@cobalt core-shell composites were fabricated by a simple and facile electroless plating method. The obtained samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) techniques. It was found that the dosage of complexing reagent and reaction time played important roles for the formation of perfect cobalt layers on the surface of glass fabric. Compact and continuous cobalt coatings with pure hcp phase could be deposited by adjusting the synthetic parameters. Such composites exhibit ferromagnetic behavior with a saturation magnetization of 65 emu/g and enhanced coercivity up to 250 Oe, respectively, and are expected to have applications in catalysis and electromagnetic shielding.

Graphical abstractGlass fabric@cobalt core-shell composites were successfully prepared via an electroless plating route at 80 °C in an alkaline bath, and such composites possessed a saturation magnetization of 65 emu/g but an enhanced coercivity of 250 Oe.Download high-res image (285KB)Download full-size image