Conductive polyaniline coated on aluminum substrate as bi-functional materials with high-performance microwave absorption and low infrared emissivity

Sheet aluminum powder was used as the substrate and aniline as the polymer monomer, to design novel Al/PANI composites via in-situ polymerization, which exhibited high electromagnetic wave absorption properties and low infrared emissivity. These unique bifunctional composite were systematically characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy , scanning electron microscope, IR-2 dual-band emission rate measuring instrument and vector network analyzer. The calculated results showed that the maximum reflection loss value of Al/PANI composite reached −46.09 dB at 14.56 GHz with a film thickness of only 1.0 mm. Meanwhile, the infrared emission rate of the composite was 0.55. The excellent electromagnetic absorption performance may be ascribed to its superior conductivity and unique structure. The merits of as-synthesized composites with high-performance microwave absorbing properties and low infrared emissivity indicate the potential use of Al/PANI composites in the applicable stealth fields.