Graphene aerogel composites derived from recycled cigarette filters for electromagnetic wave absorption

Abstract

Assembling graphene nanosheets into three dimensional aerogels has attracted considerable interest due to their unique properties and potential applications in many fields. Here, graphene aerogels constructed from interconnected graphene nanosheet-coated carbon fibers are fabricated by using cigarette filters as templates via a simple dip-coating method. The composite aerogels are ultralight (ρ = 7.6 mg cm⁻³) yet have high mechanical strength (0.07 MPa); when used as electromagnetic wave absorbers, they showed a minimum reflection loss value of −30.53 dB at 14.6 GHz and the bandwidth of reflection loss less than −10 dB (90% absorption) was 4.1 GHz. Furthermore, coating polypyrrole onto the composite aerogels can increase the minimum reflection loss value to −45.12 dB. Our results provide a promising approach to fabricate graphene-based composite aerogels with a strong electromagnetic wave absorption ability.