Facile synthesis of core–shell carbon nanotubes@MnOOH nanocomposites with remarkable dielectric loss and electromagnetic shielding properties

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs)@MnOOH core–shell nanocomposites, in which the CNTs core is uniformly coated with a shell of MnOOH nanoflakes, were successfully synthesized using a facile hydrothermal method. The appearance of sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) plays a key role in forming the unique CNTs@MnOOH core–shell. A high dielectric loss tangent value was observed for the samples with/without SDBS. Significantly, the CNTs@MnOOH core–shell nanocomposites exhibit an electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of 13–15 dB in the frequency range of 8–18 GHz, which can be attributed to the improved absorption loss, resulting from the increased electrical conductivity, and the improved impedance matching of the core–shell structure. Moreover, the increasing interfaces between the MnOOH and CNTs favor the electromagnetic attenuation performance. Our findings strongly confirm that the CNTs@MnOOH core–shell nanocomposites can be considered as a potential candidate for electromagnetic applications.