An Effective Design Strategy for the Sandwich Structure of PVDF/GNP-Ni-CNT Composites with Remarkable Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Effectiveness

Qing Qi; Li Ma; Biao Zhao; Sai Wang; Xiaobo Liu; Yajie Lei; Chul B Park

doi:10.1021/acsami.0c10600

An Effective Design Strategy for the Sandwich Structure of PVDF/GNP-Ni-CNT Composites with Remarkable Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Effectiveness

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2020 Aug 12;12(32):36568-36577. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c10600. Epub 2020 Jul 29.

Authors

Qing Qi^{1

2

3}, Li Ma², Biao Zhao^{2

4}, Sai Wang², Xiaobo Liu¹, Yajie Lei³, Chul B Park²

Affiliations

¹ Research Branch of Advanced Functional Materials, School of Materials and Energy, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.
² Microcellular Plastics Manufacturing Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, 5 King's College Road, Toronto M5S 3G8, Canada.
³ Institute of Chemical Materials, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang, 621900 Sichuan, China.
⁴ School of Material Science and Engineering, Zhengzhou University of Aeronautics, Zhengzhou, Henan 450046, China.

PMID: 32686398
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c10600

Abstract

It is well-known that attractive electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding performance depends on functional (e.g., electrical and magnetic) fillers and structural designs. This paper presents a novel three-layered sandwich structure of poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)-based nanocomposites, consisting of graphene nanoplatelets (GNP), nickel (Ni), and carbon nanotubes (CNT). The unique three-layered sandwich structure of GNP-Ni-CNT exhibited excellent EMI shielding ability due to the several interfaces of the multilayered structure with electric loss by the conductive fillers and magnetic loss by the magnetic filler. The overall shielding performance could be further improved by increasing the overall thickness and the number of layers. With a fixed thickness of 0.6 mm, the shielding effectiveness of the PVDF/GNP-Ni-CNT three-layered and six-layered structure composite at 15 GHz was 41.8 and 46.4 dB, respectively. These results provide a useful strategy to prepare various EMI shielding materials with a sandwich structure, presenting tremendous opportunities to design and manufacture advanced EMI shielding materials and equipment.

Keywords: conductive polymer composite; electric conductivity; electromagnetic interference shielding; mechanical properties; poly(vinylidene fluoride)/graphene nanoplatelets (GNP)/nickel (Ni)/carbon nanotubes (CNT) composite film.