Preparation of freestanding films from SWCNT/PANI nanocomposites using different blending techniques and characterization of their EMI shielding effectiveness in X-band

Abstract

Synthetic polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was used as a matrix, and polyaniline/SWCNT (PS) was used as a filler in the composite to create thin films for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. The blending methods, namely mechanical stirring and ultrasonication, were used to produce composites (commercially available polyaniline (PANI) and single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT)). A solution casting process was used to create the composite films, which had a thickness of 0.5 mm. X-ray diffraction and field-emission scanning electron microscopy were used to examine the structural and morphological properties of the as-prepared composite films. Using a vector network analyzer, the effect of PANI/SWCNT composition on microwave shielding effectiveness (SE) of PVA was investigated and the efficiency of the EMI shield was evaluated. To select the effective films, the losses due to absorption, reflection, and total SE of the samples were measured. These findings show that absorption dominated total shielding effectiveness (SET) up to −18 dB in the 8.2–12.4 GHz (X-band) frequency range, implying their usefulness as microwave absorbers.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Single-walled carbon nanotube
• fabrication
• blending
• freestanding films
• EMI
• shielding effectiveness

Acknowledgments

The authors profoundly thank the Directorate of ER & IPR, DRDO, New Delhi, India, for funding this project (vide reference no. ERIP/ER/1504754/M/01/1719). They also thank the management of Geethanjali College of Engineering and Technology for their support. The authors further thank Dr. K. C. James Raju, Dr. A. Rajani Kanth, Mr. Andrews Joseph, and Mr. Venkata Ramanayya, School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, India, for providing the characterization support.

Credit author statement

O.V.P.R. Siva Kumar: Conceptualization; supervision; visualization; writing, review, and editing; validation, resources, methodology. V.S. Padma Priya: Investigation, data curation; writing, review, and editing; formal analysis; methodology. Arunmetha Sundaramoorthy: Investigation, supervision, data curation, writing, review, and editing. Dhineshbabu Nattanmai Raman: Investigation, data curation, writing, review, and editing. All authors have equally contributed to this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.