Polyaniline reinforced conducting E-glass fabric using 4-chloro-3-methyl phenol as secondary dopant for the control of electromagnetic radiations

Abstract A method is described to increase the shielding effectiveness (SE) of polyaniline grafted E-glass fabric to control electromagnetic radiations. This process involves the pretreatment of glass fabric with aqueous solution of 10% maleic anhydride prior to grafting of polyaniline by in situ polymerization of aniline. The polyaniline grafted E-glass fabrics treated with polyaniline solution in chloroform is prepared using either p-toluene sulphonic acid (PTSA) or camphor-10-sulphonic acid (CSA) as dopants and 4-chloro-3-methyl phenol (CMC) as secondary dopant to get pore free polyaniline coating of thickness of 100 μm. The resulting pore free conducting fabric of 3 mm thick offered maximum SE of 54 dB at 1000 MHz. The conducting fabrics were characterized by UV–Vis spectroscopy, Conductivity, SEM, XRD, TGA and shielding effectiveness measurements. The SE measurements were carried out using co-axial transmission line method in the frequency range of 0.1–1000 MHz. The study indicates that SE increases with increase in thickness and conductivity of test coupons.