Conductive and fire-retardant wood/polyethylene composites based on a continuous honeycomb-like nanoscale carbon black network.

• A continuous honeycomb-like conductive carbon-black network in WPC was constructed. • The WPC H-CCB had excellent conductivity compared with the WPC U-CCB. • The conductivity of the WPC H-CCB was higher than the HDPE H-CCB at low carbon-black content. • The WPC H-CCB had excellent electromagnetic shielding property compared with the WPC U-CCB. • The WPC H-CCB had excellent flame retardancy compared with the WPC U-CCB. This study prepares multi-functional wood/polyethylene composites (WPCs) by addition of a small amount of nanoscale conductive carbon black (CCB), leading to honeycomb-distributed WPC (WPC H-CCB). The conductivity, electromagnetic interference shielding (EMI SE), and flame-retardancy of WPC H-CCB were comparatively studied with the uniformly-distributed WPC (WPC U-CCB) prepared through a conventional melt-blending process. The conductivity and EMI SE of the WPC H-CCB reached up to 1.5 × 10−2 S·cm−1 and 20.2 dB at 3 wt% CCB content, respectively. In comparison, the conductivity and EMI SE of the WPC U-CCB only had 8.3 × 10−14 S·cm−1 and 5.0 dB. Moreover, the cone calorimetric analysis revealed that the WPC H-CCB had lower smoke production and heat release than the WPC U-CCB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]