Facile synthesis of ZnFe2O4 with different dispersants for microwave absorption material by co-precipitation.

In this research, ZnFe₂O₄ absorbing materials were prepared via co-precipitation, employing different dispersants, namely, PEG20000, SDS, and CTAB, and using Na₂CO₃ as a precipitant. SEM, XRD, XPS, VSM, and VNA were employed to analyze the morphology, structure, absorption loss, and other properties of ZnFe₂O₄ absorbing materials. Then, the effects of different dispersants on the morphology and absorption performance of ZnFe₂O₄ materials were discussed. The results show that different dispersants can impose a great influence on the dispersion of the prepared ZnFe₂O₄ particles, which in turn show different attenuation degrees after the incidence of electromagnetic waves. To be specific, when SDS was selected as the dispersant for ZnFe₂O₄ material, the micelles formed by SDS exhibited better adsorption capacity for Zn²⁺ and Fe²⁺ in an aqueous solution, and the metal ions reacted with the precipitant to precipitate on the surface of the micelles. Thus, this facilitated the complete dispersion of the precipitate within the aqueous solution. The final prepared particles were spherical in terms of its shape, uniform particle size, about 20 nm, which demonstrated good dispersion performance with minimum reflection loss of −30.9 dB and effective absorption bandwidth of 5.66 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]