A double crosslinking MXene/cellulose nanofiber layered film for improving mechanical properties and stable electromagnetic interference shielding performance

With the discovery of the two-dimensional (2D) MXene, it shows a great application potential in the field of electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, but the mechanical brittleness and easy oxidation of MXene limit its wide application. For this reason, a double crosslinking strategy is provided to solve the above problems in a nacre-like “brick-mortar” layered MXene/cellulose nanofiber (MXene/CNF) film. Typically, the film was firstly suffered by dopamine modification, then was further reinforced by secondary Ca2+ bridging, so as to obtain excellent mechanical properties and antioxidative EMI shielding performance. Comparing with the single crosslinking, the double crosslinking strategy reveals a higher efficiency in improving the mechanical property. The mechanical strength and toughness of the double crosslinking MXene/CNF film can increase to 142.2 MPa and 9.48 MJ/m3, respectively. More importantly, while achieving good mechanical properties, the MXene composite film still holds a very stable EMI shielding performance of more than 44.6 dB when suffering from the oxidation treatment of high-temperature annealing, showing excellent anti-oxidation ability and environment tolerance. Therefore, this work provides a universal but effective double crosslinking strategy to solve the mechanical brittleness and easy oxidation of MXene-based composites, thus showing a huge potential in flexible EMI shielding applications.