Electrophoretic Deposition of Foam Ni/CNT Composites and their Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Performance

Abstract

Abstract. One of the most effective means to treat electromagnetic pollution is to develop electromagnetic interference shielding materials. Such as Foam nickel, a new lightweight porous material with large surface area, good conductivity and permeability, has drawn much expectation by virtue of its excellent electromagnetic interference shielding(EMI) performance. Recently, with the development of nanometer materials, Tremendous researches also showed that it is an efficient way to combine Foam Ni with nanometer materials for enhanced EMI performance. Herein, in this work, porous nickl/carbon nanotubes(CNT) composites were successfully prepared by a facile electrophoretic deposition method. scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and EMI tests were adopted to carefully characterize its morphology, compositions and EMI performance, respectively. The results indicated that CNT were homogeneously and tightly deposited on the surface of foam Ni by electric field force during the electrophoresis process. With the addition of CNT, the shielding behavior of the 90 PPI and 1.5 mm thick composite could be as high as 31dB in average, which is 14 dB increased compared with the pure foam Ni under same conditions around 8~12GHz frequencies. The synergistic effects of both foam Ni and CNT resulted in superior EMI performance and broad application prospects.