Enhanced electromagnetic shielding property of C/SiC composites via electrophoretically-deposited CNTs onto SiC coating

Abstract

The study mainly discusses the improvement of electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) of carbon fiber-reinforced silicon carbide (C/SiC) composites by applying carbon nanotube/SiC (CNT/SiC) coating. Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) was used to deposit CNTs on C/SiC composite surface. SiC was infiltrated into open pores of CNT network by chemical vapor infiltration process. The EPD durations were set as 2, 5, 10, and 15 min and a systematic investigations have been conducted on composites under different EPD durations, such as scanning electron microscopy, electric conductivity, as well as EMI SE. Total EMI SE (SET) of composites increased as EPD duration increased. At EDP duration equal to 15 min, SET values were 42–43 dB. Such high values of SET demonstrate that our composites are able to hinder 99.992–99.993% of incident electromagnetic signal.