Melt-blown Fabric/SWCNTs Composites via the Dry and Binder-free Coating Process for Thermal Regulation and Electromagnetic Interference Shielding

Abstract

Conductive textiles with good flexibility and durability are highly demanded for wearable electronics. However, the common approaches of making conductive textiles requires multi-steps solvent processes, which is tedious and environment unfriendly. Herein, the high-quality single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), synthesized by the floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition (FCCVD) method, were direct and dry coated on the melt-blown fabrics (MBFs) recycled from the waste masks with chemical binder-free. The obtained MBF/SWCNTs composites displayed excellent conductivity and flexibility and thus, can be further used as wearable and heatable textiles. The sheet resistance of MBF/SWCNTs composites can be further reduced by gold chloride (AuCl3) doping from 57 to 26 Ω/sq. The electrical-thermal measurement turned out the pristine MBF/SWCNTs composites can reach the surface temperature of ~ 48°C at a low voltage (5 V), while it increased to ~ 110°C after AuCl3 doping at the same voltage. In addition, the AuCl3 doped MBF/SWCNTs film with thickness of ~ 150 µm displays a high electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding efficiency of 27.1 dB at X-band. Also, the MBF/SWCNTs composites displayed good stability after long-term heating, bending and washing. Our multi-functional MBF/SWCNTs textiles not only demonstrated the reusability of waste masks but also showed great potential applications in EMI and heat management, such as thermotherapy pads and fast water evaporators.