Fabrication of cornflower-like PANI via synergistic induction strategy for effective improvement in electromagnetic shielding

Herein, a hierarchical cornflower-like polyaniline (PANI) was constructed by employing synergistic combination of the interfacial polymerization and the introduction of both branch structure and chiral doping acid to obtain high specific surface area and anisotropic chain alignment. Attributed to such special morphology of the obtained PANI, an enhanced electromagnetic shielding performance could be achieved. The formation of the three-dimensional, radially aligned cornflower-like morphology was investigated in detail. When 7.3 wt% chloroform was introduced, and 1mol% N-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine and 150 mol% 1R-(−)-10-camphorsulfonic acid, based on the aniline monomer, were applied, the cornflower-like PANI with 67.7 m 2 /g of specific surface area was generated. When it was integrated with carbon cloth, the cornflower-like PANI/carbon cloth composite with the overall thickness of 0.193 mm exhibited an electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness of 76.22 dB in the X-band (8.2–12.4 GHz). More importantly, the absorption (57.56 dB) was identified as the dominant loss mechanism. The proposed preparation strategy offers a novel approach for generating the PANI with special micro-morphology and then an enhanced electromagnetic interference shielding properties.