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Synergistic effects between carbon nanotube and anisotropy-shaped Ni in polyurethane sponge to improve electromagnetic interference shielding

聚氨酯海绵中碳纳米管与各向异性形状Ni的协同效应增强电磁干扰屏蔽性能

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Abstract

Ingenious microstructural design and suitable multicomponent strategy remain challenging for efficient absorption-dominated electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials with light weight, low filling levels and thin sample thickness. Herein, a flexible waterborne polyurethane (WPU)/dielectric carbon nanotube (CNT)/magnetic anisotropic Ni (chain or flower) EMI shielding composite sponge based on the unique shielding capsule structure was constructed by a dip-coating process. The results show that increasing the Ni (flower or chain) filler content significantly improves the electrical conductivity and EMI shielding properties of composites. The EMI shielding performances of WPU/CNT/8 wt% Ni flower-melamine foam (MF) and WPU/CNT/8 wt% Ni chain-MF are 42.8 and 46.7 dB, respectively, which exceed those of the composite sponge with only CNTs. The synergistic effect between CNTs and Ni (flower or chain) means that the main EMI shielding mechanism of the composite sponge comes from the absorption process. Importantly, owing to the protection of the WPU layer, the composites exhibit excellent EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) even under severe physical and chemical degradation. This research provides a simple synergistic approach for the design of novel, lightweight, and efficient EMI shielding composites, which show great promise for applications in portable and wearable electronic devices.

摘要

巧妙的微观结构设计和合适的多组分策略仍然是高效吸收型电磁干扰屏蔽材料在轻质、 低填充水平和薄样品厚度方面的挑战. 本文基于独特的屏蔽胶囊结构, 采用浸渍法制备了柔性水性聚氨酯/介电碳纳米管/磁各向异性镍(链或花)电磁屏蔽复合海绵. 结果表明, 增加镍(花状或链状)填料的含量可显著提高复合材料的导电性和电磁干扰屏蔽性能. 水性聚氨酯/碳纳米管/8 wt%镍花-三聚氰胺海绵和水性聚氨酯/碳纳米管/8 wt%镍链-三聚氰胺海绵的电磁屏蔽性能分别为42.8和46.7 dB, 优于仅含碳纳米管的复合海绵. 碳纳米管与镍(花状或链状)之间的协同作用意味着复合海绵的屏蔽电磁干扰的主要机制来自于吸收过程. 重要的是, 在水性聚氨酯层的保护下, 复合材料在强烈的物理和化学损伤下仍然表现出良好的电磁屏蔽性能. 这项工作为设计新颖、轻量化和高效的电磁屏蔽复合材料提供了一种简单的协同策略, 在便携式和可穿戴电子设备中显示出巨大的应用前景.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2019YFA0706802). The authors would like to thank Gang Li from shiyanjia Lab (https://www.shiyanjia.com) for the tests of XRD and SEM.

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Authors

Contributions

Author contributions Cheng H designed the experiment; Cheng H, Wang T and Zhou Y conducted the experiment; Cheng H, Pan Y and Qin Y wrote the paper; Liu C, Shen C and Liu X conceived and supervised the project. All authors contributed to the general discussion.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yijing Qin  (秦怡静) or Xianhu Liu  (刘宪虎).

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Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Supplementary information Experimental details and supporting data are available in the online version of the paper.

Haoran Cheng received his MSc degree from Zhengzhou University. Since 2020, he has been a PhD candidate under the supervision of Prof. Changyu Shen and Prof. Xianhu Liu at the National Engineering Research Center for Advanced Polymer Processing Technology, Zhengzhou University. His research field is developing functional polymer materials and exploring their applications in electromagnetic interference shielding and microwave absorption.

Yijing Qin is currently a postdoctoral researcher and reliability engineer at the Center for Engineering Materials and Reliability, Guangzhou HKUST Fok Ying Tung Research Institute, China. In 2020, she received her PhD degree from Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. Her research interests mainly focus on polymer-based functional composites, flexible wearable sensors, and electronic packaging.

Xianhu Liu is currently an associate professor at the National Engineering Research Center for Advanced Polymer Processing Technology, Zhengzhou University, China. In 2016, he received his PhD degree from Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany (2016). His research focuses on polymer processing in functional applications.

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40843_2022_2399_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Synergistic effects between carbon nanotube and anisotropy-shaped Ni in polyurethane sponge to improve electromagnetic interference shielding

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Cheng, H., Pan, Y., Wang, T. et al. Synergistic effects between carbon nanotube and anisotropy-shaped Ni in polyurethane sponge to improve electromagnetic interference shielding. Sci. China Mater. 66, 2803–2811 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40843-022-2399-1

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