Water-induced self-assembly of agar with NaCl sacrificial crystalline support toward heterostructure carbon aerogels for lightweight and broadband electromagnetic wave absorption

Carbon-based materials, owing to their abundance, highly tunable dielectric constants, and easily controllable microstructures, are among the most important electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbing materials. However, they still suffer from the limitation of a narrow effective absorption bandwidth (EAB). In this work, we propose a water-induced self-assembly strategy of agar with NaCl sacrificial crystalline support to construct agar aerogel-derived porous carbon (AAPC) featuring hierarchical porosity, heteroatom doping, and conductive networks for lightweight and broadband electromagnetic wave absorption. Under conditions of low density (11.08 mg/cm3) and a low filling ratio (2 %), AAPC 4 –700 achieves an EAB of 7.68 GHz at a thickness of 2.55 mm, with a minimum reflection loss (RL min ) of −50.0 dB. In addition, AAPC exhibits excellent thermal insulation and flame-retardant properties, enabling its potential application in extreme environments. This study elucidates the EMW dissipation mechanism of AAPC and opens a new pathway for the design of lightweight EMW absorbers with broad EAB.