Ferrite-grafted polyaniline nanofibers as electromagnetic shielding materials

A functional structure of Mn0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4-on-polyaniline nanocomposites with high dielectric absorbing properties and electromagnetic shielding effectiveness at low frequencies was successfully fabricated through a facile in situ emulsion polymerization. Polyaniline (PANI) was doped with hydrochloric acid to improve its electrical properties and interactions with ferrite nanoparticles. The electrostatic force, paramagnetic force and hydrogen bonding strongly bonded or assembled ferrite nanoparticles on the polyaniline surface and improved the thermal stability of the polyaniline nanostructure. Polyaniline nanofibers were found to have an average diameter of 100 nm and length of 500 nm, consisting of a bundle of smaller individual units, whereas ferrite nanoparticles were of spherical shape with an average diameter 30 nm. The research findings show that ferrite particles overcome the common problem of aggregation and evenly dispersed on the surface of polyaniline. The ferrite-grafted polyaniline nanostructures were demonstrated as a promising functional material for the absorbing of electromagnetic microwaves because of a large amount of dipole polarizations in the polymer backbone and at the interfaces of the ferrite nanoparticles and polyaniline nanofibers. Both the complex permittivity and shielding effectiveness of the ferrite-grafted polyaniline nanocomposites increased with the increasing weight percentage of PANI. There is also a good match of real and imaginary parts of the complex permittivity, giving rise to almost an equal dielectric loss angle tangent in the measured frequency (30 MHz to 1 GHz). This superior property allows the nanocomposites to function within an extended absorbing band.