Banana Leaf-Like C-doped MoS2 Aerogels Towards Excellent Microwave Absorption Performance.

We describe the design and manufacture of a lightweight C-doped MoS2 aerogel with special regular banana leaf-like microstructure used for high-performance microwave absorbers. The aerogel precursor was first fabricated from a self-assembly process between alginate (Alg) and thiomolybdate (ATM), where Alg as a template was assembled with ATM into regular banana leaf-like architectures along the ice growth direction during the oriented freezing. After pyrosis in 900 ℃, the C-doped MoS2 aerogels maintained low densities and porous hierarchal banana leaf-like structure, where the banana leaves ranged in diameter from about 2 μm to 5 μm with the growth of small branches. Benefitting from these features, the C-doped MoS2 aerogel possessed excellent microwave absorption performance in the frequency range of 2-18 GHz. The minimum reflection loss (RL) reached -43 dB at 5.4 GHz with a matching thickness of 4 mm and the effective microwave absorption band (RL<-10 dB) reached 4 GHz (14-18 GHz) at the thickness of 1.5 mm. Our findings also provide strategies for designing MoS2 aerogel nanostructures for electronic devices, catalysis, and other potential applications.