Salt leached viable porous Fe3O4 decorated polyaniline - SWCNH/PVDF composite spectacles as an admirable electromagnetic shielding. efficiency in extended Ku-band region

This study describes the preparation of porous poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)/(ferrosoferric oxide (Fe3O4) decorated polyaniline/single wall carbon nanohorn (SWCNH)) PFC composite through a simple solution blending process using pre-synthesized PFC composite prepared by the in-situ oxidative polymerization of aniline in the presence of SWCNH with FeCl3 as oxidant (also used as the Fe source in the synthesis of Fe3O4) for highly efficient electromagnetic shielding application with high absorption capability. PFC was homogeneously dispersed in the PVDF matrix as conductive nanofiller to develop the conducting network and the porous morphology in the composite was achieved by leaching out of the salt (NaCI) added during solution blending process. The composite shows an excellent EMI shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) due to its porous structure and presence of continuous conductive network (polyaniline-SWCNH) and ferromagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles. Moreover, the highly conductive (similar to 2.5 x 10(-2) S cm(-1)) PVDF-PFC composite (2 mm thickness) has greater dielectric loss and permeability property with a high EMI SE value (approximate to - 29.7 dB) at very low loading (10 wt %) of PFC and SWCNH (1 wt%) in extended Ku -band region. The microwave absorption value also exceeds the reflection as the incident microwaves reflected and scattered multiple times internally and dissipated by the conductive 3D network of SWCNH and polyaniline throughout the composite pore wall. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.