Microcellular foamed polyamide 6/carbon nanotube composites with superior electromagnetic wave absorption

doi:10.1016/j.jmst.2022.01.002

Abstract

Abstract:

Electromagnetic (EM) wave pollution causing damage to precision equipment and threatening the health of living organisms has attracted considerable attention. Herein, promising microcellular foamed polyamide 6 (PA6)/carbon nanotube (CNT) composites for highly efficient EM wave absorption were successfully fabricated using supercritical CO₂ foaming. Nanocomposites foams with a void fraction ranging from 38.7% to 85.1% were achieved, providing a platform to assess the correlation of the electrical conductivity, the dielectric permittivity and the EM wave absorption properties with porosity. Notably, the Foam-257.5C sample with a void fraction of 38.7% exhibited outstanding EM wave absorption characteristics at a thickness of only 1.59 mm and an ultra-low reflection loss value of -55.3 dB (99.9997% wave absorption). Most importantly, the effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) of the Foam-257.5C sample could cover the entire Ku band (12.4-18 GHz) by slightly adjusting the thickness from 1.20 to 1.60 mm. The superior EM wave absorption performance of the Foam-257.5C sample was attributed to multiple reflections and scattering at the solid-gas interfaces, favorable impedance matching due to the existence of a large polymer-air interface area, conductive loss near the interfaces and interfacial polarization. Thus, this study offers an eco-friendly, simple and versatile methodology to develop high-efficiency, flexible polymer-based EM wave absorbents.

Key words: Polymer nanocomposites, Supercritical CO₂ foaming, Void fraction, Dielectric properties, Electromagnetic wave absorption

Menglong Xu, Linfeng Wei, Li Ma, Jiawei Lu, Tao Liu, Ling Zhang, Ling Zhao, Chul B. Park. Microcellular foamed polyamide 6/carbon nanotube composites with superior electromagnetic wave absorption[J]. J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2022, 117: 215-224.

Figures/Tables 7

Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of the fabrication process of PA6/CNT composite foams.

Fig. 2. (a) Lightweight property of PA6/CNT composites foam; (b) Flexibility of PA6/CNT composites foam; (c) Raman shift of CNT; (d) XRD pattern of CNT, unfoamed PA6 (Solid-PA6) and unfoamed PA6/CNT nanocomposites (Solid-PA6C); TEM micrographs of (e) unfoamed PA6/CNT composites (Solid-PA6C), (f) enlarged square in (e), (g) PA6/CNT composites foam (Foam-257.5C) and (h) enlarged square in (g).

Fig. 3. SEM micrographs of various PA6/CNT nanocomposite foams-(a) Foam-225C, (b) Foam-232.5C, (c) Foam-242.5C and (d) Foam-257.5C, (e) cell size and (f) void fraction of various PA6/CNT nanocomposite foams at different foaming temperatures.

Fig. 4. Correlation between the electrical conductivity and the void fraction for various solid and foamed PA6/CNT nanocomposites.

Fig. 5. Electromagnetic parameters of the solid and foamed PA6/CNT nanocomposites in the frequency range of 12.4-18 GHz-(a) real part of the permittivity ε′, (b) imaginary part of the permittivity ε", (c) dielectric loss tangent tan δ and (d) attenuation constant α.

Fig. 6. (a-c) Three-dimensional (3D) reflection loss (RL) values, (d-f) RL values at particular thicknesses, (g-i) corresponding impedance matching at particular thicknesses of the unfoamed and foamed PA6/CNT nanocomposites.

Fig. 7. (a) Direct comparison of wave absorbing properties of the Foam-257.5C in this work with those of representative polymer composites foams-polyurethane (PU) foams [53], [54], [55], [56], poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) foams [15,57], polypropylene (PP) foams [24,58], polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) foams [59], polymethacrylimide (PMI) foams [60]; (b) Schematic illustration of the EM wave absorption mechanisms of PA6/CNT nanocomposite foams.

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