Silicon carbide nano-fibers in-situ grown on carbon fibers for enhanced microwave absorption properties

doi:10.1016/j.ceramint.2017.01.095

Ceramics International

Volume 43, Issue 7, May 2017, Pages 5628-5634

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceramint.2017.01.095 Get rights and content

Abstract

Silicon carbide nano-fibers (SiCNFs) were in-situ grown on the surface of carbon fibers by catalysis chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) with Ni nano-particles as catalyst at 1000 °C. The phase composition, microstructures, oxidation resistance and microwave absorption properties of the SiCNFs coated carbon fibers were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Thermal gravity analysis (TGA) and Vector network analyzer, respectively. The results show that the as-grown nano-fibers which are mainly composed of β-SiC, present a withe-like morphology with diameter of 20–50 nm and aspect ratio of 100–150. Additionally, the TGA curves indicate that the oxidation resistance of the SiCNFs coated carbon fibers is significantly improved in comparison to the pure carbon fibers. Moreover, the investigation reveals that the microwave absorption properties of the SiCNFs coated carbon fibers are effectively enhanced. The reflectivity of the SiCNFs coated carbon fibers is less than −10 dB within the frequency ranging from 9.2 to 11.7 GHz and the lowest value of reflectivity can approach −19.9 dB when the thickness of specimen is 2 mm. While the reflection loss of the pure carbon fibers is higher than −2.1 dB within the whole band ranging from 2 and 18 GHz. The superior microwave absorbing performance of the SiCNFs coated carbon fibers is mainly attributed to the improved impedance matching as well as dissipation resulted from hopping migration. In conclusion, this study provides an effective modification approach to improve the microwave absorption properties of carbon fibers. Finally, the SiCNFs coated carbon fibers could be considered as a promising candidate in light-weight microwave absorbing materials.

Introduction

With the explosive growth of information technology and the rapidly expanding use of various high-frequency electronic devices, electromagnetic interference has now become a serious pollution issue. In order to solve the electromagnetic interference problem, great efforts have been done in development for effective microwave absorbing materials with light weight, tiny thickness, high strength, low cost, and strong and broad wave absorption [1], [2], [3], [4]. Carbon fibers and their composites have been found to be fascinating candidates for microwave absorption, due to their low density, excellent mechanical property, good conductivity, low cost, and wide availability [5], [6], [7], [8]. However, the low electrical resistivity (<10⁻³ Ω cm) of carbon fibers could easily lead to strong reflection against electromagnetic waves and poor microwave absorption [9]. Therefore, many investigations concerning the improvement of microwave absorbing property, especially applications of the magnetic metals and their oxide coatings, have been proved to be a solution for carbon fibers [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]. However, the current problems for magnetic metals or oxides including the relatively high cost, high density and worst point of all, incapability for dissipating the electromagnetic energy when the service temperature is higher than their Curie temperatures, greatly restricts their wide applications [17], [18], [19].

Silicon Carbide (SiC), as a typical semiconductor material, is a good candidate for light weight and high-temperature resistance microwave absorber due to its low density, favorable oxidation-resistance, high thermal and chemical stability, superior mechanical strength and adjustable electrical conductivity, etc. [20], [21], [22]. Note that the electromagnetic property of SiC generally varies with their morphologies, and the one-dimensional (1D) SiC nano-fibers (SiCNFs) with high surface-to-volume ratio and shape structure effects were considered to be of better microwave absorption performance than bulk or micro sized SiC particles [23], [24]. Therefore, it is generally believed that the SiCNFs coated carbon fibers could achieve efficient and stable electromagnetic wave attenuation. However, there is still a lack of reports on the microwave absorption properties of the in-situ grown SiCNFs modified carbon fibers. In this paper, SiCNFs were in-situ grown on the surfaces of carbon fibers by catalysis chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) at a relatively low temperature. The microstructure, oxidation resistance and microwave absorption properties of the as-grown SiCNFs coated carbon fibers were investigated in detail. The present study suggests that the SiCNFs coated carbon fibers are promising for microwave absorbing materials with light weight and thin thickness.

Section snippets

Preparation of the SiCNFs coated Carbon fibers

The experimental procedures including the electroplating Ni and CCVD process are presented in schematic diagram as shown in Fig. 1. Firstly, the Toray T700 carbon fibers with average diameter of 7 µm and length of 10 cm were immersed in acetone for 24 h, and afterwards ultrasonically cleaned in distilled water, subsequently dried at 100 °C for 2 h. The nickel nanoparticles, as catalysts for SiCNFs, were deposited on the carbon fiber surfaces via electroplating in a Nickel sulfate solution with the

Phase composition, structure and growing mechanism of SiCNFs

The XRD patterns of the as-prepared fibers are presented in Fig. 2. Obviously, the sharp diffraction peaks of β-SiC detected in the samples confirm that SiCNFs have indeed in-situ grown on the surfaces of carbon fibers. In addition, the diffraction peaks of Ni₃Si₂ observed in the XRD pattern indicates that a small amount of Ni₃Si₂ compounds in the as-prepared fibers are formed by the reaction of Si and Ni atoms. The general morphology of the as-prepared fibers is demonstrated in Fig. 2(b). It

Conclusion

In this work, SiCNFs were successfully grown in-situ on the surfaces of carbon fibers by catalysis chemical vapor deposition. The as-prepared nano-fibers with withe-like morphology are mainly composed of β-SiC. Additionally, compared with the pure carbon fibers the oxidation resistance of the SiCNFs coated carbon fibers is significantly improved due to better oxidation resistance of SiC in air. Moreover, the microwave absorption properties of the SiCNFs coated carbon fibers are effectively

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the State Key Development Program for Basic Research of China (Grant No. 2011CB605804), National Natural Science Foundation of China (51604107) and Science research project of Hunan Provincial Department of Education (16C0461).

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¹: These authors contributed equally to this work.

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