TITLE:
Experimental and Computational Study of the Microwave Absorption Properties of Recycled α-Fe2O3/OPEFB Fiber/PCL Multi-Layered Composites
AUTHORS:
Ebenezer Ekow Mensah, Raba’ah Syahidah Azis, Zulkifly Abbas
KEYWORDS:
Multi-Layered Composites, Recycled α-Fe2O3, Reflection Loss, OPEFB Fiber, Relative Complex Permittivity
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering,
Vol.10 No.3,
March
28,
2022
ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was to fabricate multi-layered
recycled α-Fe2O3/OPEFB
fiber/PCL composites for microwave absorbing applications in the 1 - 4 GHz frequency range. The multi-layered composites were 6 mm thick and
each consisted of a 2 mm thick layer of recycled α-Fe2O3/PCL composites at various loadings (5 wt% - 25 wt%) of 16.2 nm recycled α-Fe2O3 nanofiller, placed between two layers of 2 mm thick OPEFB fiber/PCL composites
blended at a fixed ratio of 7:3. The real (ε') and imaginary (ε") components of
the relative complex permittivity were measured using the open-ended coaxial
probe technique and the values obtained were applied as inputs for the Finite
Element Method to calculate the reflection coefficient magnitudes from which
the reflection loss (RL) properties were determined. Both ε' and ε" increased
linearly with recycled α-Fe2O3 nanofiller content and the values of ε' varied between 3.0 and 3.9 while the ε" values ranged between 0.26 and 0.64 within 1 - 4 GHz. The RL (dB) showed the most prominent values
within the 1.38 - 1.46 GHz band with a minimum
of -38 dB attained by the 25 wt% composite. Another batch of minimum values
occurred in the 2.39 - 3.49 GHz range with the
lowest of -25 dB at 2.8 GHz. The recycled α-Fe2O3/OPEFB
fiber/PCL multi-layered composites are promising materials that can be
engineered for solving noise problems in the 1 - 4 GHz range.