Scalable manufacturing of flexible, durable Ti3C2Tx MXene/Polyvinylidene fluoride film for multifunctional electromagnetic interference shielding and electro/photo-thermal conversion applications

The durability and large-scale production of Ti3C2Tx MXene-based composites are the main obstacles in industrialized application. Herein, a scalable blade coating method is demonstrated for fabricating the flexible and durable polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)/Ti3C2Tx MXene layered films with compact hierarchical brick-and-mortar structure. The highly aligned MXene nanosheets make the obtained PVDF/MXene films with high electrical conductivity from 21.1 to 214.6 S cm−1. In combination to the multiple wave reflection in hierarchical layered structure and the interfacial polarization between dielectric matrix and MXene, PVDF/MXene films reveal excellent electromagnetic interference (EMI) performance with an optimal specific EMI shielding effectiveness (SSE/t) of 19504.8 dB cm2 g−1 at only 17 μm thickness. More importantly, the PVDF/MXene film can withstand the damages from mechanical deformation, hot/cold attack and chemical corrosion, meanwhile maintain a stable EMI shielding performance within floating of 5%. Besides, arising from the surface plasmon resonance effect and high electrical conductivity, the PVDF/MXene film reveals photo/electro-thermal heating abilities with rapid response time, high stability and controllability, which ensure their reliable EMI shielding performance under extremely cold conditions.