Development of Flexible Conductive Polymer based Nanocomposites for EMI Shielding Application

Abstract

The swift developments in the field of telecommunication in general and wireless telecommunications has brought about revolutionary and modernized changes in our society. At the same time due to this development a new threat spectrum has appeared on the globe wherein, hazards of electromagnetic interference phenomenon have surfaced. These problems are novel thus they warrant some novel solutions. Conventional EMI shielding materials are mostly metals so they besides being heavy, are prone to corrosion, rust, and degradation of devices thus as better replacement choice of synthetic polymer has been made. Efforts have been made to address the said issues by inculcating nnanocomposites having their roots into carbon family have become a good competitor, but addition of Polyvinyl alcohol polymer blend is novel in field of EMI shielding. Apart from the above referred issue the use of simple carbon nanotubes (CNTs) offered little promising results in terms complex permittivity (ε"). Thus, in this study CNTs were functionalized and used as reinforcement in novel matrix of PVA. The CNTs-PVA nanocomposites were prepared by dissolving 5% PVA in deionized water and dispersing the varying amount of CNTs into this solution and subsequently casting these dispersions to fabricated thin films. The overall effects obtained are quite promising with shielding effectiveness of ~21 SE/dB (at 2GHz) at loading density of 5% CNTs with respect to PVA solution.