Graphene‐based composite with microwave absorption property prepared by in situ reduction

Binary composite of graphene/poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) with microwave absorption property is prepared by in situ reduction process. Graphite oxide (GO) is prepared from flake graphite by modified Hummers' method and further dispersed in distilled water to get GO solution. Then, PEO powder is slowly added into GO solution to get GO/PEO solution, and graphene/PEO composites is prepared via a facile and quick reduction process in GO/PEO solution. PEO and graphene/PEO composites are characterized by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, thermo gravimetric analysis, and vector network analyzer. The results show that graphene is uniformly dispersed in PEO matrix because GO and PEO can be uniformly dispersed at molecular level due to their water‐solubility and the agglomeration of graphene can be prevented by PEO macromolecular chains during in situ reduction process. Graphene/PEO composite has better thermal stability than PEO, which can be explained by the graphene restoration of sp² bonded carbon structure. Meanwhile, graphene/PEO composite shows excellent microwave absorption property at low grapheme content. The minimum reflection loss of graphene/PEO composite is up to −20.0 dB when the content of graphene is only 1 wt%. POLYM. COMPOS., 35:461–467, 2014. © 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers