Electrospun Porous Polyketone Nanofibers With In Situ Grown Silver Nanoparticles for High-Efficiency Electromagnetic Interference Shielding

Conductive polymer fabric composites (CPFCs) are high-performance electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials featuring high conductivity, low density, flexibility, corrosion resistance, and processability. In this study, flexible hierarchically porous polyketone/silver nanoparticle (HPPK/Ag) core-shell nanofibers were fabricated via electrospinning followed by in situ silver deposition. The successful construction of the Ag coating was confirmed by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. With increasing Ag content, both the electrical conductivity and EMI shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) of the HPPK/Ag membranes were significantly enhanced while retaining excellent flexibility and stability under mechanical deformation. The HPPK/Ag-20 hybrid membranes with a density of 0.26 g/cm 3 and thickness of 100 μm, achieved the maximum SSE and SSE/t values of 184.94 dB cm 3 /g and 17513.86 dB cm 2 /g across the X-band (8.2–12.4 GHz), respectively. This superior performance is attributed to a synergistic shielding mechanism: the continuous conductive Ag network induces strong reflection at the surface, while the hierarchically porous core facilitates efficient absorption loss through intensive interfacial polarization and multiple internal reflections. These results indicate that HPPK/Ag hybrid membranes are highly promising as lightweight and thin EMI shielding materials for wearable electronics. Highlights Porous flexible HPPK films were prepared by phase separation principle. The porous structure of HPPK nanofibers facilitated in situ Ag deposition. HPPK/Ag films exhibited high mechanical stability under mechanical deformation. Both reflection and absorption contribute to the enhanced EMI SE.