Two birds with one stone: A “needle-like” structure constructed on multifunctional PET fabric surface for flame retardancy and electromagnetic interference shielding

Abstract

Here, a facile method is reported to prepare multifunctional PET fabrics with high flame retardancy, hydrophobicity and ideal electromagnetic shielding. PET fabric was firstly modified via polydopamine with mussel-like structure, and then DOPO@ZnO was constructed. A new type of composite PET fabric was prepared by simple, low-cost electroless Ni process and surface PDMS treatment (PpDPNP). The resulting composite fabric was extensively investigated for its stability and applicability in a complicated environment. The conductive interconnection network of modified fabric made it have excellent electrical conductivity and mechanical properties. Even after solution corrosion and washing, the prepared composite fabric could maintain a relatively stable electrical conductivity. The conductivity, tensile and elongation at break of composite fabric were 144.62 S/cm, 78.48 MPa and 167.49 %, respectively. The average electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) of PpDPNP reached 58.83 dB with 0.18 mm thickness and electroless Ni only 20 min at X-band, which was mainly due to large dielectric loss and multiple reflections. The modified PET fabric had self-extinguishing performance, and peak heat release rate (PHRR) and total heat release rate (THR) were 60.7 % and 59.8 % lower than pure PET fabric, respectively, indicating that the composite fabric had excellent flame retardancy.