Mulberry-like polyaniline-based flexible composite fabrics with effective electromagnetic shielding capability

With the explosive development of wearable and foldable electronics, it is imperative to create novel flexible composite materials with excellent durability, reliability, and high electromagnetic interference shielding capabilities. However, the preparation of flexible polyaniline (PANI) based shielding composites with excellent mechanical deformation durability is still a huge challenge due to the inherent rigidity of PANI chains. Herein, porous and flexible artificial suede-like cloth (ASC) fabrics were chosen as the substrate. A facile approach was proposed to synthesize ASC/PANI composite fabrics. The mulberry-like polyaniline clusters coated ASC fabrics were successfully prepared by a facile in-situ polymerization technique. Therefore, a three-dimensional sandwich-like PANI conductive network was established. Extensive research has been carried out on structure, morphology, dielectrics and electromagnetic characteristics. The results indicate that the high dielectric loss mainly originates from the electrical conductivity. The fabricated ASC/PANI fabric exhibits an effective EMI shielding capability of 25.90 dB. The unique heterostructures and the skin depth effect were responsible for the enhanced shielding performance. Experimental and theoretical analysis demonstrated the absorption dominated shielding mechanism. Interestingly, more than 93.5% of SE can be retained after 1500 cycles of bending test with a bending radius of only 2.6 mm. Therefore, these ASC/PANI fabrics with effective shielding properties and robust durability can be delivered. Our results promise an efficient and powerful strategy to achieve flexible PANI-based composite for shielding application potentials.