Publication

Abstract : The growing interest in conducting polymers in the recent decade is largely due to their remarkable electrical properties, which open up a variety of new applications. The versatility and tuneable properties of conducting polymers continue to drive research and development in these areas, expanding their potential applications and improving their performance in various technologies. The ever-increasing range of electronic gadgets usage demands the requirement of effective electromagnetic shielding materials capable of providing a large surface area at which the intensity of radiations can be controlled by absorption and reflection. In the present study, an effort is made to prepare polyvinyl alcohol/polyethylene glycol/polyaniline (PVA/PEG/PANI) blend and polyvinyl alcohol/polyethylene glycol/polyaniline@tungsten oxide (PVA/PEG/PANI@WO3) polymer nanocomposite flexible film for the EMI shielding applications. The prepared films were characterized by different analytical techniques. The surface morphology and elemental analysis confirmed the successful incorporation of WO3 nanoparticles into the PVA/PEG/PANI film. The electrical properties of the films were measured in the frequency range of 20 Hz to 1 MHz at a temperature of 25 ± 3 °C. The PVA/PEG/PANI blend showed a conductivity of 5.553 × 10−5 S/m which was enhanced by 77.8% with the addition of 5 wt% of WO3 nanoparticles to the blend. The higher electrical conductivity of polymer nanocomposite film contributes to higher electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness. The shielding effectiveness of blend and polymer nanocomposite films were found to be 1.005 dB and 1.316 dB respectively, suggesting that the shielding effectiveness is enhanced by 26.7% with the incorporation of WO3 nanoparticles to the polymer blend.