Advanced 3D Printed Conductive Polymer Nanocomposites for Electromagnetic Shielding

Abstract

Herein, we produced carbon nanotube (CNT)-based polymeric filaments for fabrication of electromagnetic interference (EMI) shields with complex geometries. Thanks to the 3D printing technique, enabling us to fabricate EMI shields with complex geometries by computer aided design (CAD). In the first phase, polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable polymer, was melt-mixed with CNT at various loadings (0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0wt.%) using a twin-screw extruder to create conductive polymer nanocomposite filaments. Afterward, we compression molded the developed filaments to evaluate their electrical and EMI shielding properties. Our PLA/CNT3.0wt.% filaments exhibit outstanding EMI shielding as high as 23dB at a thickness of 1mm. In the last phase, we successfully 3D printed our custom-made filaments using fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique. We obtained appreciable EMI shielding results from the 3D printed samples (i.e., 15dB at a thickness of 1mm and 20 dB at a thickness of 3mm). The obtained results well corroborate the performance of our developed conductive polymer nanocomposites as meritorious substitutions for metallic shields.