Steady microwave absorption behavior of two-dimensional metal carbide MXene and Polyaniline composite in X-band

Abstract

Abstract Two-dimensional metal carbides and nitrides, known as MXenes, have good metallic conductivity and hydrophilic surfaces. An elegant exfoliations approach was used to prepare a two dimensional (2D) metal carbide Ti3C2 MXene from layered Ti3AlC2 MAX phase by removing ‘Al’ layer by chemical etching. Here, we demonstrate the potential of MXene Ti3C2 and its composite with Polyaniline (PANI) for EMI shielding. The morphology, phase composition, magnetic properties and microwave absorbing properties of the samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, vibrating sample magnetometer and vector network analyzer respectively. Microstructure investigation using the scanning electron microscope showed an average grain size of 6 um for Ti3C2 MXene. The saturation magnetization of MAX and MXene phases is 49.16 emu/gm and 49.28 emu/gm respectively. The coercivity is much higher in MXene as compared to MAX phase. The Electromagnetic Shielding properties like complex permittivity, complex permeability, S-parameters and various shielding effectiveness for the MXene-PANI composite (50% wt) were studied in the microwave frequency range (8.2–12.2 GHz). A good enhanced EMI-shielding effectiveness of ≈23 dB with the sample thickness of 1.5 mm is achieved for the lightweight MXene-PANI composite.