Chen Peng, He Shibo, Wang Tianyou, Wang Chencan, Tao Junru, Li Yiwen
College of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Polymer Materials, Sichuan University, 610065, Chengdu, China.
Nat Commun. 2025 Aug 3;16(1):7127. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-62367-9.
Lightweight, high-performance electromagnetic shielding materials rely on the precise design of electromagnetic response structures. Conventional shielding materials often involve complex fabrication of conjugated composites or graphitization of organic materials, facing challenges in balancing their performance and processability. As such, seeking and designing intrinsically conjugated materials with superior processability is crucial. In this work, we have innovatively engineered those bioinspired polymers with highly ordered microstructures, using a 5, 6-dihydroxyindole ring tetramer framework to construct highly ordered melanin-like nanofibers by tuning π-π stacking. The resulting melanin-like aerogels represent surprising microwave absorption performance, a maximum reflection loss of -68.87 dB, and an effective absorption bandwidth of 5.25 GHz. In the X-band, the aerogel reached the specific EMI shielding efficiency of 47909.9 dB cm/g. This work represents the first successful extension of melanin-like polymers into the microwave spectrum, demonstrating great potential in the electromagnetic field.
轻质、高性能电磁屏蔽材料依赖于电磁响应结构的精确设计。传统屏蔽材料通常涉及共轭复合材料的复杂制备或有机材料的石墨化，在平衡其性能和可加工性方面面临挑战。因此，寻找和设计具有优异可加工性的本征共轭材料至关重要。在这项工作中，我们创新性地设计了那些具有高度有序微观结构的仿生聚合物，使用5,6 - 二羟基吲哚环四聚体框架，通过调节π - π堆积来构建高度有序的类黑色素纳米纤维。所得的类黑色素气凝胶展现出令人惊讶的微波吸收性能，最大反射损耗为 - 68.87 dB，有效吸收带宽为5.25 GHz。在X波段，该气凝胶达到了47909.9 dB cm/g的特定电磁干扰屏蔽效率。这项工作代表了类黑色素聚合物首次成功扩展到微波频段，在电磁场中显示出巨大潜力。
