For high-efficiency microwave absorption, both of the self loss of materials (dielectric loss and magnetic dissipation) and structural attenuation (multiple scattering, interfacial polarization) play important roles. In addition, the magnetic/dielectric materials combination, and void volume introduction can also contribute to the optimization of impedance matching. Given that, 2D cobalt nanoparticles embedded nitrogen-doped porous graphitized carbon composites (Co@N-C) were fabricated via a simple sacrificial templates method, where the CoAl-layered double hydroxide (CoAl-LDH) nanosheets were prepared to hold ZIF-67 and then decomposed during the sintering process. In this work, strong dielectric attenuation, multiple microwave scattering and dielectric polarization, as well as shortened impedance matching all make for the nice microwave absorption performance. This work not only exhibits the importance in materials selection and structure design, but also demonstrates the close relation between matching thickness and response frequency at maximum reflection loss (RL) peak. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.