Lightweight and stiff carbon foams derived from rigid thermosetting polyimide foam with superior electromagnetic interference shielding performance. (March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Li, Jianwei; Ding, Yuanqing; Yu, Ni; Gao, Qiang; Fan, Xun; Wei, Xuan; Zhang, Guangcheng; Ma, Zhonglei; He, Xinhai
• Is Part Of: Carbon. Volume 158(2020)
• Page Start: 45
• Page End: 54
• Publication Date: 2020-03
• Subjects: Carbon -- Periodicals; Carbone -- Périodiques; Koolstof; Toepassingen; Electronic journals; 546.681
• DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2019.11.075
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0008-6223

Abstract

Abstract: Carbon foams are obtained by pyrolysis of conventional polymeric porous materials usually show poor mechanical properties. The preparation of lightweight carbon foams with high mechanical strength and adjustable three-dimensional architecture still remains a huge challenge. This work reports an efficient approach for fabricating rigid carbon foams via carbonization of thermosetting polyimide foam. Benefiting from the cross-linked networks, the prepared carbon foams present excellent thermal and dimensional stability with low shrinkage of ∼47% after carbonized at 1500 °C. Moreover, the compressive strength of the carbon foams after carbonized at 1200 °C (CF-1200) reaches 0.25 MPa at 10% strains with the density of 0.091 g cm −3 . Notably, the CF-1200 shows superior electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding effectiveness and specific EMI shielding effectiveness of ∼54 dB and 593.4 dB cm 3 /g respectively at 10 GHz with the thickness of 2.0 mm. In particular, the bulk density, mechanical properties, electrical conductivity of carbon foams can be adjusted by varying the characteristics of polyimide foam accordingly. As the result, these lightweight and stiff carbon foams with such superior EMI SE have great potential applications as structural-functional integrated materials in the aerospace and wireless telecommunication fields. Graphical abstract: This study introduced an efficient and scalable approach for fabricating lightweight and stiff carbon foams by carbonization of rigid thermosetting PI foam. Owing to the cross-linked networks, the prepared carbon foams present excellent thermal and dimensional stability. Moreover, the CF-1200 presents superior electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding effectiveness of ∼54 dB with the thickness of 2.0 mm. Image 1022