Hollow conductive polypyrrole microtubes as microwave absorbents with good seawater corrosion resistance

Abstract

Conductive polymers materials with hollow micro/nanostructure due to their special electrical properties and corrosion resistance have potential applications in microwave absorption, especially in marine environment. Herein, one-dimensional hollow conductive polypyrrole microtubes (H-PPyM) were prepared by in-situ polymerization of pyrrole monomer with methyl orange (MO) as soft template and FeCl₃ as oxidant based on structural regulation strategy. The morphology and conductivity of H-PPyM can be easily controlled by adjusting the content proportion of MO. The results indicated that the surface morphology of polypyrrole changed from random granular to microtubular and the conductivity also gradually rose with the content increase of MO. When the content proportion of MO was 0.25 g, the obtained H-PPyM-0.25 composites possed notable microwave absorption capacity, simultaneously achieving ultrabroad effective absorption bandwidth (EAB, 6.7 GHz) and strong reflection loss value (RL, −33.6 dB) at a thickness of 2.6 mm with the filling content of only 10 wt%, respectively. Furthermore, the corresponding H-PPyM-0.25 products soaked in corrosive medium (3.5 wt% NaCl solution) for one month still displayed stable tubular hollow structure and excellent microwave absorption performance with RLmin of −43.8 dB and EAB of 6.2 GHz. The research results can not only help to understand the relationship among the morphology and microwave absorption of PPy, but also open a new avenue for preparing excellent seawater corrosion resistant microwave absorption materials.