Multilayer Carbon-Structured BaTiO3@C Nanocomposites with Wide Microwave Absorption Bandwidth and Excellent Corrosion Resistance

Developing lightweight materials that simultaneously achieve efficient electromagnetic wave absorption and robust corrosion resistance remains a significant challenge for marine stealth and electromagnetic protection applications. The main obstacle lies in the rational integration of electromagnetic attenuation capability, impedance matching, and corrosion protection. In this work, a multilayer carbon-structured BaTiO3@C nanocomposite (CSTB-x) was successfully fabricated via freeze-drying combined with in situ pyrolysis. During the carbonization process, chitosan (CS) was transformed into a nitrogen-doped multilayer porous carbon framework, while BaTiO3 particles were embedded into the carbon matrix to construct a BaTiO3@C heterostructure. Benefiting from optimized impedance matching and the synergistic contributions of conduction loss, dipolar polarization, and interfacial polarization, CSTB-1.0 delivered a minimum reflection loss (RLmin) of −48.07 dB at 6.16 GHz with a thickness of 3.32 mm, and achieved a maximum effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) of 7.04 GHz at a thickness of 1.88 mm. In addition, CSTB-1.0 exhibited a low corrosion current density (8.93 × 10−6 A/cm2) and a high polarization resistance (7.87 × 103 Ω∙cm2), indicating excellent corrosion protection performance. The enhanced corrosion resistance is mainly attributed to the barrier effect of the multilayer carbon framework and the tortuous diffusion pathways generated by the porous and core–shell structures. Moreover, the material showed a minimum radar cross-section (RCS) value of −41.25 dBsm, demonstrating remarkable electromagnetic scattering suppression capability. These results provide a feasible strategy for the design and fabrication of marine stealth materials with integrated microwave absorption and corrosion resistance.