Hierarchical polyimide-polyborosiloxane host-guest structure with impact resistance, acoustic and thermal insulation performance for electro-stability applications

The ubiquitous existence of mechanical impact, sound pollution and thermal damage conferred severe risks to both individuals and devices, which catalyzed increasing demand for advanced protective materials. Though biomimetic structures have motivated the development of high-performance protective composites against a simple threat, the realization of multi-mode interference protection remained a challenging issue. This work proposed a host-guest structural composite, consisting of viscoelastic polyborosiloxane (PBS) dispersively distributed in porous polyimide (PI) matrix. The resulting PI-PBS composite presented effective impact force attenuation (85.8%-92.3%), arising from the multi scale energy dissipation mechanism of strain-rate enhancement, structural densification and synergistic stress transfer, which was intuitively demonstrated by an innovative mechano-discoloration approach. The viscous dissipation effect endowed PI-PBS with extraordinary acoustic insulation effectiveness in a wide frequency region (1–6.3 kHz). Due to the low thermal conductivity (0.051 W/(m·K)), PI-PBS presented good thermal insulation performance over a wide temperature range (∼ −80 – 300 °C). The structure dependence of thermal conduction behavior was revealed via FE simulation, while demonstrating various applications in dynamic infrared thermal camouflage. PI-PBS, as a functional wrapping, provided reliable guarantee for electrical stability of conductive elements against impact, ultrasonic and thermal interferences, which indicated significant value in electromagnetic shielding, sensing and electrothermal fields. Therefore, PI-PBS could assist in efforts to lighten, integrate and intelligentize protective materials in the future.