Electrically Insulating Composite Films with Excellent Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Performance Enabled by Multilayer Structure

Lei Wang1,3,Email

Li Lang1

Weining Ren1

Zelong Yang1

Tiantian Gao1

Zhongguo Zhao1,Email

Mohamed Kallel4

Yuezhou Liu2,Email

1School of Chemistry and Environment Science, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong, Shaanxi, 723001, China.
2Xi’an Modern Chemistry Research Institute, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710065, China.
3Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Science and Technology, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710072, China.
4Department of Physics, College of Science, Northern Border University, Arar, 100026‌‌, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Insulating polymer-based electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding composites play a pivotal role in electronic packaging and flexible electronics. In this work, insulating poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonic acid (PEDOT:PSS)/bacterial cellulose (BC) EMI shielding composite films with excellent mechanical properties and superior flexibility are prepared by layer-by-layer assembly. The PEDOT:PSS/BC composite films present excellent electrical insulation properties, mechanical properties and chemical stability. When the mass fractions of PEDOT:PSS are 50 wt%, the PEDOT:PSS/BC composite films exhibit volume resistivity as high as 2.0x106 Ω·cm and EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) of 72 dB in the X-band (8.2-12.4 GHz), and they can maintain efficient EMI shielding performance under various harsh conditions (high temperature, low temperature and ultrasonication). Furthermore, the PEDOT:PSS/BC composite films possess excellent flexibility, mechanical properties, and long-term durability (harsh chemical environments and severe mechanical wearing). This work proposes a facile strategy to design insulating polymer-based EMI shielding composite films with excellent mechanical properties and superior flexibility, which shows great potential for applications in electronic packaging, flexible electronic devices, aeronautics and astronautics.