Electrochemical deposition assisted the construction of titanium carbide@polyaniline hybrid in waterborne polyurethane conductive network for improved electromagnetic interference shielding and flame retardancy

To solve the increasing serious electromagnetic radiation pollution and limitations of metal-based electromagnetic shielding materials in flexible devices, the polyaniline (PANI) is deposited on the surface of two-dimensional Ti3C2 to obtain the Ti3C2@PANI hybrid for constructing waterborne polyurethane (WPU) composite. Meanwhile, to address the flame risk of WPU composite, the two-dimensional black phosphorous (BP) is incorporated as a flame retardant to prepare isolated flame-retardant black phosphorous-waterborne polyurethane/Ti3C2@polyaniline(Q-FBP-WPU/Ti3C2@PANI) composite with isolated structure. Due to the existence of conductive fillers and the isolated structure, the Q-FBP-WPU/Ti3C2@PANI composite exhibited the highest electrical conductivity (2.23 S/m) and the electromagnetic shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) of 27.3 dB in the frequency range of 8.2–12.4 GHz (X-band) and retains higher than 20 dB after hundreds of stretching and bending, which completely satisfies the commercial demands. Compared with the composite with a disordered structure, the thermal conductivity of Q-FBP-WPU/Ti3C2@PANI is increased by 93.3%. The cone test results show that the peak heat release rate, total heat release, total smoke production and total CO production of Q-FBP-WPU/Ti3C2@PANI is decreased by 46.2%, 16.3%, 21.2% and 15.5% than that of pure WPU, certifying the fire safety of WPU are greatly improved. This work supports a novel and applicable idea for constructing functional electromagnetic shielding materials.