Symmetric sandwich microcellular (SSM) structure design for multifunctional carbon nanotubes/polymethylmethacrylate composites foam with broadband electromagnetic wave absorption

The ingenious acquisition of lightweight, thin thickness and wide absorption bandwidth electromagnetic wave absorbing (EMWA) materials remains a significant challenge, the architecture design of the absorber is critical. In this study, symmetric sandwich microcellular (SSM) structures made of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/PMMA are developed, and their EMWA behavior is detailed investigated. The optimal effective absorbing bandwidth reaches 3.00 GHz and optimal specific reflection loss value achieves −48.53 dB·g/cm3 over the X-band at 2.5 mm for resulting composite foam with 6 wt% of CNTs loading, showing a distinct improvement of EMWA performance comparing with normal single-layered sample. The dramatic improved performances mainly ascribe to the better impedance matching and multiple relaxation polarization behaviors derived from SSM structure. Such SSM structure effectively blocks heat conduction, resulting in a lower thermal conductivity (0.092 W/mK), which empowers the material to fulfill dual microwave-infrared stealth meanwhile, it is expected to be a EMWA absorber with the characteristics of “lightweight, multifunction and comprehensiveness”.