A novel ternary composite: fabrication, performance and application of expanded graphite/polyaniline/CoFe sub(2)O sub(4) ferrite

Expanded graphite-polyaniline microparticles (EG/PANI), synthesized by the emulsion polymerization of aniline in the presence of expanded graphite, were coated with CoFe sub(2)O sub(4) ferrite (CF) to form ternary composites of EG/PANI/CoFe sub(2)O sub(4) (EG/PANI/CF). The phase composition, morphology, electrical and magnetic performances of the composites were characterized by means of modern measurement technology. The results indicated that the electrical and magnetic performances of the ternary composites were related to their composition, and were better than those of binary composites. The EG/PANI/CF composites with a m sub(CF)/m sub(EG/PANI) of 0.2 had the best conductivity (86.207 S cm super(-1)) of all ternary composites. The EG/PANI/CF composites with a m sub(CF)/m sub(EG/PANI) of 0.8 at a thickness of 0.5 mm had the minimum reflection loss of -19.13 dB at 13.28 GHz and an available bandwidth of 5.94 GHz. Hence, the obtained composites had potential and valuable applications in microwave shielding and absorption fields.