Preparation of high-toughness PAM-Gel/CNTs-RGO hydrogel and its electromagnetic shielding properties†

With the rapid development of the electromagnetic (EMI) industry, EMI pollution has become a serious problem. In this work, the effect of filler content on electromagnetic shielding performance was studied by heat-induced polymerization of acrylamide (AM) and gelatin (Gel) to form double-mesh hydrogel (PAM-Gel), and then, different contents of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) were added. Finally, a one-dimensional/two-dimensional (1D/2D) PAM-Gel/CNTs-RGO heterostructured van der Waals hydrogel was prepared by mixing CNTs with RGO. The experimental results showed that compared with PAM-Gel/CNTs hydrogel or PAM-Gel/RGO hydrogel, the mixed PAM-Gel/CNTs-RGO hydrogel showed the best EMI shielding performance. In general, the EMI shielding effect of PAM-Gel/CNTs-RGO-1 : 1 in the X-band with a thickness of 4 mm was as high as 45.14 dB, compressive stress–strain was 18.45 MPa and 95.90%, water content was 75.74%, and conductivity was 1.12 s m⁻¹.