Enhancement of the electromagnetic wave absorption via the bamboo-like SiC whiskers with high-density stacking faults

It is a focus of electromagnetic wave-absorbing materials to control the microscopic appearance and structure design of materials to achieve good absorbing performance. Herein, we synthesized the bamboo-like β-SiC whiskers with numerous stacking faults using bamboo pulp paper. The results show that the bamboo-like β-SiC whiskers stacking faults are mostly concentrated at the bamboo nodes of the whiskers which had a significant impact on conductive and polarization losses. The composite with β-SiC whiskers/paraffin mass ratio of 0.5 shows good EM wave absorption capacity with a minimum reflection loss ( RL min ) of − 46.62 dB at 2.35 mm, and the effective absorption bandwidth ( EAB ) is 3.4 GHz (8.3–11.7 GHz) at 2.50 mm. The conductance loss, dipole polarization, polarization relaxation loss, and interfacial polarization induced by the bamboo-like structure are the major factors to improve its microwave absorption performance. This work provides a new idea for designing biomass-derived materials for excellent microwave absorbers.