Honey-comb carbon nanostructure derived from peach gum to yield high microwave absorption

Lightweight and highly efficient electromagnetic absorptions are crucial for microwave absorption materials due to the fast development of information technology. Bio-derived carbon materials are ideal resistance loss-type microwave absorbers with lightweight. A honey-comb carbon structure has been obtained from peach gum by facile hydrothermal and pyrolysis processes. The skeleton of the as-derived honey-comb carbon structure is composed of carbon nanoparticles with diameters around 40 nm. The honey-comb structures were further carbonized at 850 °C (NPG-850) to have a large specific surface area of 1401.7 m² g⁻¹ with an average pore diameter of 3.2 nm. A minimum reflection loss (RL) of − 59.4 dB was obtained by NPG-850 at a thickness of 2.0 mm with an effective absorption bandwidth (EAB, RL < − 10 dB) of 4.1 GHz (14.7–10.6 GHz). The RL value of the peach gum-derived honey-comb carbon nanostructures is much higher than the reported carbon nanostructures even with thinner thickness and less mass loading, which might due to the multi-reflection effect of the honey-comb structures and the skeleton composition.