A novel approach toward reducing energy consumption and promoting electromagnetic interference shielding efﬁciency in the buildings using Brick/polyaniline nanocomposite Reza Peymanfar a,⇑ , Shabnam Keykavous-Amand b , Mohammad Mahdi Abadi b , Yousef Yassi c a Department of Chemical Engineering, Energy Institute of Higher Education, Saveh, Iran b Department of Architecture, Energy Institute of Higher Education, Saveh, Iran c Department of Mechanical Engineering, Energy Institute of Higher Education, Saveh, Iran highlights  A novel approach improving energy and shielding efﬁciency of building materials.  A novel insitu oxidative polymerization for coating macroporous Brick by PANi ﬁlm.  Light and electromagnetic features of PANi reinforced energy and shielding efﬁciency  A promising route to keeping cool b uildings by focusing on light characteristics. graphical abstract article info Article history: Received 11 May 2020 Received in revised form 15 June 2020 Accepted 22 June 2020 Keywords: Brick/polyaniline (PANi) Nanocomposite Energy consumption Electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding efﬁciency (SE) Optical performance abstract In this research, a complementary approach was presented to prepare building materials, improving shielding and energy efﬁciency. Accordingly, a macroporous Brick was constructed and coated by the polyaniline (PANi) ﬁlm using an innovative route. Diverse analyses were applied, attesting Brick/PANi composite has been synthesized. The results of the diffuse reﬂection spectroscopy (DRS) analysis illus- trated that the intensity of the light absorption in UV–Vis-NIR region was dramatically diminished for Brick/PANi, suggesting the nanocomposite for improving energy efﬁciency. Noticeably, the bandgap was augmented to 3.7 eV when Brick was coated by PANi. The warming samples were monitored using infrared thermometer under the near-infrared (NIR) light. Interestingly, the obtained results exhibited that the warming Brick/PANi nanocomposite was more time-consuming compared to Brick. More signif- icantly, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) thermograms attested that Brick/PANi nanocomposite needs lower energy to augment its temperature due to the coated PANi ﬁlm (12 lm). The obtained results manifest that the reﬂection of NIR light from interface of PANi ﬁlm plays the vital role in thermal behavior of Brick/PANi nanocomposite. Finally, Brick exposed signiﬁcant shielding efﬁciency (SE) originated by its macroporous structure reinforcing interfacial polarization and the coated PANi ﬁlm ascended its SE prop- erties. The obtained results clariﬁed that Brick/PANi nanocomposite has shielded more than 59% of the electromagnetic waves at x-band, which was mainly generated by relaxation and conductive loss pro- duced by coated PANi and developed functional groups. More signiﬁcantly, the absorption played vital role bringing SE of the samples, emphasizing the importance of the presented research. Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.120042 0950-0618/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: reza_peymanfar@cmps2.iust.ac.ir (R. Peymanfar). Construction and Building Materials 263 (2020) 120042 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Construction and Building Materials journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat