Construction of sub-micron eccentric Ag@PANI particles by interface and redox potential engineering

Benefitting from the tunable heterogeneous interface and electronic interaction, metal-polymer-based hybrid composites have attracted wide attention. It is highly desired to develop advanced synthesis methodology and understand the structure-performance relationship. Herein, with the aniline oligomer as the key enabler, we resolve the inferior dynamics issue in the Ag+-aniline reaction system, and successfully fabricate a sub-micron anisotropic eccentric Ag@polyaniline(PANI) particle(an average size up to 340 nm) at room temperature. We demonstrate the synergy mechanism of polyvinyl pyrrolidone and insitu generated PANI for modifying the dynamic reaction interface. We further clarify the H+concentration and the surfactant types serve as main descriptors to tune the reaction dynamics. Besides, by applying other aniline oligomers, a series of similar eccentric structures can also be obtained, indicative of the good applicability of our strategy. Such a sub-micron eccentric structure furnishes the Ag@PANI composites with sound performance for microwave absorption, as demonstrated by a minimum reflection loss(RL) value of-35 d B with an effective absorption bandwidth of 3.7 GHz. This study provides an inspiring scope/concept of eccentric microstructure engineering for better meeting the demands in the high-tech military, energy, environment fields, and beyond.