Fabrication of carbon fibers doped with Prussian blue derivative composites for enhanced electromagnetic wave absorption

Carbon fibers possess advantages such as light weight, high aspect ratio, and excellent electrical conductivity. However, pure carbon fibers as electromagnetic wave-absorbing materials lack loss capability. Introducing magnetic loss through magnetic materials is an effective strategy. In this study, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fiber-doped with Prussian blue (PB) cubes are firstly prepared using electrospinning. Afterwards, by adjusting calcination conditions, carbon fibers doped with PB derivatives (PBFC) composites are successfully fabricated. PBFC-3 achieves excellent electromagnetic wave absorbing properties with a reflection loss (RL) of − 47.28 dB at 1.32 mm and effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) of 4.38 GHz at 2.92 mm. Excellent performance comes from electromagnetic coordination of conduction, magnetic, and dielectric losses. Additionally, simulation technology is employed to simulate radar cross section (RCS) absorption for the composites in real-world applications. The reflected signal values of PBFC-3 are less than − 20 dB m² in the angular range of − 100 to 100°, and when θ = 0, it achieves 30.95 dB·m² at 2.42 mm and 24.56 dB·m² at 1.32 mm. This study provides a reference of structural design and performance tuning for electromagnetic wave absorption structures.