High Electromagnetic Shielding Effect of Carbon Nanotubes/Waterborne Polyurethane Composites Prepared by “Break-Adsorption” Method

Abstract

In recent years, conductive polymer composites have been widely studied for their electrical conductivity and electromagnetic shielding effects due to their advantages of light weight, simple preparation methods, and structural design versatility. In this study, oxidized multi-walled carbon nanotubes/waterborne polyurethane composites (OCNT/WPU) were prepared by grafting oxidized carbon nanotubes onto polyurethane molecular chains through in situ polymerization, using environmentally friendly waterborne polyurethane as the polymer matrix. Then, the OCNT/WPU structure was broken by high shear force, and the loading of CNTs was increased by adsorption, and a new composite structure was designed (denoted by OCWPU). The structure and morphology of OCNT/WPU and OCWPU were characterized by FT-IR and SEM. The structure and morphology of OCWPU with different multi-walled carbon nanotube loadings (CNTs/OCWPU) were characterized by SEM, Raman. Finally, the electrical conductivity and the electromagnetic shielding properties of the composites were investigated. It was found that after application of high shear force, the structure of OCWPU was disrupted and the surface activity of the material increased. With the increase in CNTs content, CNTs formed a rosette structure in the polyurethane matrix and covered the surface, and its electromagnetic shielding effect in X-bond (8.2–12.4 Ghz) would be able to reach 23 dB at 5% CNTs/OCWPU and 66.5 dB at 50% CNTs/OCWPU to meet the commercial needs. With 50% CNTs/OCWPU, an electrical conductivity of 5.1 S/cm could be achieved. This work provides a novel idea for the structural design of conductive polymer composites, which can achieve greater performance with the same carbon nanotube content.