Preparation of MWCNT-Ni0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4-Epoxy composites with both dielectric and ferromagnetic properties

Abstract

In this work, ferromagnetic Ni0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 (NZF) particles were prepared through the co-precipitation method. Then, dielectric ferromagnetic composites with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and NZF embedded into E-51 Epoxy matrix were synthesized by a curing process using tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA) as the curing agent. In order to facilitate the contrast, the volume fraction of the NZF ferrite was fixed at 17%, and the permeability and permittivity of the composites have been investigated in detail with the Agilent 4294A from 40 Hz to 110 MHz. For the MWCNT filler, its one-dimensional structure and good electric properties could make the composites gain a great increase on dielectric constant. And the permittivity of the composites with fMWCNT=1.7% is twice higher than the composites with only NZF. Moreover, the permeability of all the composites nearly remains the same. All the above results indicate that the MWCNT-NZF-Epoxy composites own both dielectric and ferromagnetic properties.