Flexible composite film of aligned polyaniline grown on the surface of magnetic barium titanate/polyvinylidene fluoride for exceptional microwave absorption performance

A rational structure design is always an attractive approach for high-performance microwave absorbers. Accordingly, flexible BaTiO3@Ni–P/polyvinylidene fluoride/polyaniline (BaTiO3@Ni–P/PVDF/PANI) composite films were fabricated by growing aligned PANI on the surface of a BaTiO3@Ni–P/PVDF composite film. Morphology and structure characterization showed that uniform core–shell BaTiO3@Ni–P microspheres and the unique conelike shapes of aligned PANI were innovatively fabricated. The effect of the special structure on microwave absorption properties was investigated within the 2–18 GHz frequency range. The prepared absorbents displayed exceptional microwave absorption performances. The minimum reflection of BaTiO3@Ni–P/PVDF/PANI reached −22.56 dB at 12.72 GHz with a thickness of 2 mm, and the bandwidth that corresponded to reflection loss below −10 dB reached 4.33 GHz (11.12–15.45 GHz). The possible absorption mechanism of BaTiO3@Ni–P/PVDF/PANI was also studied in detail. Results offer an effective means to develop microwave absorbers via rational microstructure design.