Reactive Ni-COOH MOF curing of TGIC resin toward integrated electromagnetic attenuation and engineering performance

Conventional resin-based electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbers rely largely on physically blended lossy fillers that remain chemically disconnected from polymer-network formation, making it difficult to introduce electromagnetic functionality without compromising structural reliability. Here, we transform an EMW-active component from a passive filler into a reactive network-forming component. Three isocyanurate-based Ni-MOFs bearing –COOH, –OH, and –SH terminal groups were first screened to elucidate how ligand chemistry regulates local coordination, morphology, and GHz dielectric response. Ni-COOH, which exhibited the most favorable overall attenuation behavior, was subsequently selected to cure triglycidyl isocyanurate (TGIC). Structural and spectroscopic analyses support carboxyl-mediated epoxy ring opening and reactive incorporation of the Ni-containing component into the crosslinked network. The resulting Ni-COOH-cured TGIC exhibits composition-dependent dielectric relaxation and impedance matching, with NC 0.3 reaching an RL min of −10.17 dB at 6.0 mm. Meanwhile, it retains a compressive strength of approximately 150 MPa, a tensile strength of 46.19 MPa, and a T 10wt% of 297.6 °C. This work establishes a reactive-network design strategy that couples electromagnetic functionality with resin-network construction, offering an alternative to conventional passive-filler blending for multifunctional EMW-absorbing resins.