Synthesis and enhanced microwave absorption properties: a strongly hydrogenated TiO2 nanomaterial

Due to its improved physical and chemical performances, a strongly hydrogenated TiO2 was designed and produced successfully by using a sealing-transfer reduction method at a relatively low temperature (425 degrees C). The microstructures, electromagnetic and microwave absorbing properties were investigated in detail. Experimental results revealed that: (1) the minimum reflection loss (RL) value of the hydrogenated TiO2 up to -53.8 dB (99.999 99% of EM wave attenuation) was reached at 11.2 GHz, and the RL values below -20 dB (99%) were obtained in a frequency range of 7.3-16.8 GHz. (2) Compared to pristine TiO2 and black TiO2 in other reports, the present hydrogenated TiO2 exhibited greatly improved microwave absorption performance. Moreover, the mechanism was also discussed. It was demonstrated that the excellent microwave absorption performance of the black TiO2 arose from the strong dielectric loss, excellent impedance matching and attention loss due to associated relaxation and interfacial polarization. It is expected that the hydrogenated TiO2 exhibits great potential applications in the area of high performance microwave absorbing materials. In addition, it is believed that the black TiO2 @ magnetic metals composites will display an excellent microwave absorbing property.