Smart and Economic Conductive Textile for Electromagnetic Interference Shielding

Abstract

Carbon black particles are stabilized into the macro-structured clustered composite form by using natural rubber latex, polyvinyl alcohol, and others additives. Newly developed macro-structured carbon clusters are applied on the various types of woven fabric by the knife-over-roll coating technique to develop conductive cotton fabric. The surface morphology of the coated fabrics is characterized by FESEM and AFM. The morphological study confirmed the presence of clustered nature of carbon particles on the surface of the fabric. The electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMISE2) of the conductive fabrics are assessed using vector network analyzer. The scattering parameters of the two antenna analyzer are used to calculate the EMISE of all the fabrics. The effect of the structure is studied for the highest EMISE taking plain, twill and satin designed fabrics. Moreover, the various parameters such as a real density, thread density, thickness of the base fabric are systematically varied to achieve optimal EMISE. The satin designed fabric has performed better as the shield (22 dB) among the three basic weaves used in the investigation. The maximum reflected portion of the electromagnetic interference shielding is observed when the satin designed fabric is used as base fabric. The EMISE of the coated fabrics is proportionally increased with increases in the areal density, thread density, and thickness.