A facile and green strategy to achieve metallized woven carbon fiber through the triple roles of dopamine in in-situ thermal reduction of Ag

Metallized carbon fiber (CF) has received lots of attention due to its improved electrical conductivity and electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding performance. Herein, we propose a facile and environmental strategy to achieve uniform and dense silver (Ag) deposition on polydopamine (PDA) modified woven CF by a simple in-situ thermal reduction approach. PDA plays three important roles for anchoring and formatting Ag layer by accommodating the CF surface with improved interfacial actions, capturing the silver ions (Ag+) and then reducing the Ag+ during the hot-pressing process. The CF as intrinsic conductive substrate simultaneously promoted the reduction capability of PDA through electrons transfer during the reduction process. As a result, the single-layered Ag coated CF fabric can be easily formed and exhibits excellent EMI shielding effectiveness (73.08 dB) and reliable shielding performance. This strategy saves tedious fabrication process and avoids the use of toxic and harmful substances, which is highly promising in fabricating large scale metallized fiber cloths.