Carbon nanotubes/polypropylene nanocomposites foams for EMI shielding applications

In order to reduce the undesired effect of the electromagnetic interference, the developing of the materials with high capacity of electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding has attracted a great attention to scientific and industrial communities during last two decades.Indeed, polymer carbon nanotubes (CNTs) nanocomposites foams are addressed due to their high electrical conductivity and a great potential applications in electrostatic dissipation (ESD) and in electromagnetic interferences (EMI) shielding. However, the shortcoming of the addition of CNTs is that it usually leads to an increase of permittivity which results in enhancing undesirably the electromagnetic reflectivity due to the mismatch between the wave impedances for the signal propagating into air and into the absorbing material, respectively. To solve this problem, the introduction of air into these nanocomposites by the formation of foam will be favorable in order to reduce the permittivity of conductive composites. A good understanding of the influence of the foam structural parameters on the electrical properties of the foam will ultimately enable the optimum design of these materials for the targeted applications. A wide range of poly (propylene)/CNTs nanocomposites foams were synthesized using the supercritical CO2 technology. Different foaming parameters, such as the temperature, impregnation pressure will be controlled to modify the foam structure. Nanocomposite foams show higher electrical conductivity than non-foamed nanocomposites at the same volume content of CNTs. Effects of foam morphology such as cell density, pore size, volume expansion, and cell-wall thickness on electrical conductivity were comprehensively assessed. Similarly to our previous study on PMMA foam nanocomposites, the electrical conductivity of foams show higher value when the volume expansion is increased and when the average pore size is decreased. The preliminary EMI performances have highlighted that PP/CNTs foams containing 0.1 vol%CNTs are able to absorb about 90% of the incident radiation in the 25 to 40 GHz frequency range.