Electrically conductive and electromagnetic interference shielding of polyethylene composites with devisable carbon nanotube networks

This paper reports a comparative study of the electrical and electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding performance of three carbon nanotube/polyethylene (CNT/PE) composites with different conductive networks, i.e. , segregated structure (s-CNT/PE), partially segregated structure (p-CNT/PE) and ra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of materials chemistry. C, Materials for optical and electronic devices Materials for optical and electronic devices, 2015-01, Vol.3 (36), p.9369-9378
Main Authors: Jia, Li-Chuan, Yan, Ding-Xiang, Cui, Cheng-Hua, Jiang, Xin, Ji, Xu, Li, Zhong-Ming
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbon nanotubes
Electrical resistivity
Electrically conductive
Electromagnetic interference
Networks
Polyethylenes
Polymer matrix composites
Resistivity
Shielding
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Summary:This paper reports a comparative study of the electrical and electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding performance of three carbon nanotube/polyethylene (CNT/PE) composites with different conductive networks, i.e. , segregated structure (s-CNT/PE), partially segregated structure (p-CNT/PE) and randomly distributed structure (r-CNT/PE). The s-CNT/PE composite exhibits superior electrical conductivity up to 2 orders of magnitude over that of p-CNT/PE and r-CNT/PE composites, at the same CNT loading. Only 5 wt% CNT addition in the s-CNT/PE composite realizes an excellent EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) as high as 46.4 dB, which is 20% and 46% higher than that for p-CNT/PE and r-CNT/PE composites, respectively. The selectively distributed CNTs at the interfaces between PE polyhedrons would certainly increase the effective CNT concentrations that form conducting pathways and thus increase the electrical conductivity and EMI SE in the s-CNT/PE composites. Such special structure also provides numerous interfaces that absorb the electromagnetic waves, resulting in an absorption-dominated shielding mechanism. Our work suggests that designing conductive networks in polymer composites is a promising approach to develop high-performance EMI shielding materials. A segregated structure results in an EMI SE up to 46.4 dB in CNT/polyethylene composites with only 5 wt% CNTs.
ISSN:2050-7526
2050-7534
DOI:10.1039/c5tc01822f