Superhydrophobic and Corrosion-Resistant Electrospun Hybrid Membrane for High-Efficiency Electromagnetic Interference Shielding

Superhydrophobic electromagnetic interference (EMI) materials are becoming increasingly important to the long-term service of outdoor all-weather electrical equipment. It is an urgent need to prepare flexible and robust high-performance EMI shielding materials to work in harsh environments. To this end, we demonstrate a delicate structure design of superhydrophobic EMI shielding material that possesses desired properties via chemical deposition of silver nanocluster on electrospun polymer nanofibers followed by stearic acid (SA) modification. The porous electrospun hybrid membrane with a spatially distributed silver coating enabled excellent electrical conductivity up to 57 319 S cm–1. Notably, superior EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) of 90.14 dB in an ultrabroadband frequency range is achieved in conjugation with the specific shielding effectiveness (SSE/t) of 14 253 dB cm2 g–1, owing to the combined effects of favorable porous structure and interfacial polarization. The thin coating of the SA layer endowed the film with superhydrophobicity (water contact angle up to 156.7°) and superior corrosion resistance with only 6.56% loss in EMI SE after 40 days incubation in the salt spray tank. The integrated functionalities being achieved in the hybrid membrane, such as high resistance to mechanical deformation (3.55% loss in EMI SE after 2000 times of bending), self-cleaning property, long-term (12 months) performance stability under high mechanical and chemical tolerance, offer great promise for outdoor all-weather electronic equipment under harsh environments.