Polyaniline reinforced conducting E-glass fabric using 4-chloro-3-methyl phenol as secondary dopant for the control of electromagnetic radiations

A method is described to increase the shielding effectiveness (SE) of polyaniline grafted E-glass fabric to control electromagnetic radiations. This process involves the pretreatment of glass fabric with aqueous solution of 10% maleic anhydride prior to grafting of polyaniline by in situ polymerization of aniline. The polyaniline grafted E-glass fabrics treated with polyaniline solution in chloroform is prepared using either p-toluene sulphonic acid (PTSA) or camphor-10-sulphonic acid (CSA) as dopants and 4-chloro-3-methyl phenol (CMC) as secondary dopant to get pore free polyaniline coating of thickness of 100 μm. The resulting pore free conducting fabric of 3 mm thick offered maximum SE of 54 dB at 1000 MHz. The conducting fabrics were characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy, Conductivity, SEM, XRD, TGA and shielding effectiveness measurements. The SE measurements were carried out using co-axial transmission line method in the frequency range of 0.1-1000 MHz. The study indicates that SE increases with increase in thickness and conductivity of test coupons.