Synthesis and microwave absorption properties of zirconium nitride nanofibers by electrospinning combined with carbon thermal reduction nitriding method

Zirconium nitride nanofibers were synthesized by electrospinning method combined with carbon thermal reduction nitridation process, with zirconium chloride octahydrate and polyvinylpyrrolidone as raw materials. The phase composition, morphology and pore structure of the as-prepared nanofibers were analyzed by XRD, XPS, SEM, TEM and BET. In addition, the microwave absorption properties were measured using transmission line theory utilizing a vector network analyzer of zirconium nitride nanofibers/paraffin composites with different filler loadings. The results show that the as-prepared nanofibers are ZrN phase. The zirconium nitride nanofibers contain residual oxygen and carbon to form Zr(N,C,O) solid solution. The average diameter of the nanofibers is approximately 300 nm. There are particles distributed in it and the particle size ranges from 100 to 200 nm. The specific surface area of zirconium nitride nanofibers is 176.7 m 2 /g, and their pore volume is 0.26 cc/g. The pore sizes are mainly distributed at 3 nm. The granular structure and abundant pores of zirconium nitride nanofibers provide suitable conditions for impedance matching, interfacial polarization, multiple reflections, and scattering. These nanofibers exhibit excellent microwave absorption performance, achieving an optimum reflection loss of − 55.11 dB at a thickness of 1.55 mm with an effective absorption bandwidth of 3.51 GHz when the filler loading is 35 wt%. This study suggests that zirconium nitride nanofibers with good microwave absorption performance have the potential as novel transition metal nitride microwave absorption candidate materials.