Multifunctional Silver Decorated Leather Solid Waste/Poly(Vinyl Alcohol) Nanocomposites for Electromagnetic Interference Shielding, Joule Heating and Crude-Oil cleaning

With the rapid development of modern intelligent industry and the Internet of Things, the demand for multifunctional electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding material has increased for complicated application scenes. Herein, derived from a hazardous waste, i.e., leather solid waste (LSW), a silver/LSW/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) membrane has been prepared via resourceful combination of solids state shear milling (S-3 M) and electroless plating technology. The debundled leather fibers prepared by S-3 M can act as template for silver electroless plating and thus conductive Ag/LSW fibers with high aspect ratio and electrically conductive were achieved. Moreover, Ag/LSW fibers were integrated into film and sealed with PVA to form the Ag/LSW/PVA membrane. Owing to the high conductivity and mechanical performance of PVA, the Ag/LSW/PVA membrane (1.2 mm) exhibited EMI shielding (62 dB), mechanical robustness (tensile strength reached to 89.7 MPa), and Joule heating capability (56 s to 101.3 degrees C). Impressively, the multifunctional membrane exhibits great potential in future smart oil stations, where under the premise of satisfying high-efficiency electromagnetic shielding, the Ag/LSW/PVA membrane can effectively absorb heavy crude oil through the Joule heating and porous structure and achieve double protection for electronic devices.