Top-down construction strategy toward sustainable cellulose composite paper with tunable electromagnetic interference shielding

Cellulose-based electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding composites have aroused enormous attention due to their advantages of environmental protection, low cost, and abundant resources. However, it is still a great challenge to develop a method with low energy consumption, scalability, and short synthesis time to prepare cellulose-based shielding materials. Herein, a cellulose/polyaniline (PANI) composite paper directly from wood was synthesized via a facile top-down strategy. By adjusting the concentration of aniline and the polymerization time, the prepared composite paper exhibits the shielding effectiveness (SE) of 21.4 dB, which can block 99% of incident electromagnetic waves. What's more, the composite paper inherits the anisotropic feature of pristine wood, presenting an excellent mechanical performance with a tensile strength of about 54 MPa in the longitudinal direction. In short, this work provides a feasible strategy to prepare the green, scalable, and low-cost cellulose/PANI composite paper, which may be promising in the field of EMI shielding.