Fabrication of multi-functional PVDF/RGO composites via a simple thermal reduction process and their enhanced electromagnetic wave absorption and dielectric properties

Polymer-composites of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) have been prepared from PVDF/GO membrane by a simple hot-molding technique. The specific interaction between oxygen-containing functional groups in the GO surface and fluorine groups in PVDF allows the GO to disperse into PVDF homogeneously and it can be thermally reduced into RGO after a hot-press process. Several characterizations such as AFM, XRD, FT-IR and Raman have been employed to confirm the thermally reduced process from GO to RGO in the composite. The enhanced absorption and dielectric properties were investigated; the results indicated that for the composites with a low filler loading of 3 wt%, the maximum reflection loss of the PVDF/RGO composite can reach -25.6 dB at 10.8 GHz, and the frequency bandwidth less than -10 dB is from 8.48 to 12.80 GHz, while, when the filler is 3 wt%, the dielectric constant can reach 3801 (10³ Hz). The enhanced mechanism has been also explained in detail.