Two birds with one stone: Graphene oxide@sulfonated polyaniline nanocomposites towards high-performance electromagnetic wave absorption and corrosion protection

Conventional electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbing materials can exhibit excellent microwave absorption property . However, their susceptibility to corrosion and high density restrict them used in the harsh marine environments with high humidity conditions. Here, we report graphene oxide@camphorsulfonic acid-doped polyaniline (GO@CSA-PANi) nanocomposites prepared by an in-situ polymerization approach as promising materials for application in both EMW absorption and corrosion protection . Impressively, when applied as EMW absorbers, the as-obtained GO@CSA-PANi nanocomposites show excellent EMW absorbing capacity with broad bandwidth due to the remarkable impedance matching and EMW attenuation characteristics caused by the introduction of chiral CSA-PANi. The reflection loss (RL) and effective bandwidth of the GO@CSA-PANi can reach −48.1 dB and 5.3 GHz with a 2.4 mm matching thickness, respectively. Furthermore, owing to the synergistic effects of GO and CSA-PANi, the water borne epoxy composite coatings with GO@CSA-PANi nanocomposites exhibit long term corrosion resistance . The as-obtained composite coatings at optimized content exhibit a remarkable corrosion protection capability (97.43%) after 168 h of immersion in corrosive medium. The bifunctional nanocomposites could open new avenues towards high-performance electromagnetic wave absorption with corrosion protection.