Carbon nanotubes chemical bonding with cotton/spandex blended fabric via thiol-epoxy click chemistry for durable electromagnetic interference shielding

Despite flexible and wearable electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding fabrics have aroused accelerated attention in recent years, problem such as detachment caused by traditional physical bonding methods still remains a huge challenge. Click chemistry, as a type of chemical reaction that generate substances by joining small units together with heteroatom links, is an emerging surface modification technology. Herein, thiol-epoxy click chemistry is utilized to connect thiol-modified carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and cotton/spandex blended fabric (CSF). The resultant fabric exhibits good hydrophobicity with water contact angle of 121.4° in conjunction with a high X-band shielding effectiveness (SE) of 27.30 dB with coating thickness of only ~140 μm. More importantly, benefiting from the constructed strong chemical bond with CNTs coating and fiber, the obtained fabric shows high resistance to bending test, strong acid/alkali solutions (pH = 2.0/12.0), liquid nitrogen and so on. Our work demonstrates that the EMI shielding fabrics with excellent corrosion resistance and stability prepared by thiol-epoxy click chemistry potentially suitable for long-term EMI shielding applications even in extreme environments. •Novel surface modification technology, thiol-epoxy click chemistry is adopted.•The EMI shielding fabric exhibits excellent EMI shielding performance.•The EMI shielding fabric possesses remarkable anti-fouling, anti-corrosion and mechanical properties.