Electromagnetic shielding of polymer-matrix composites with metallic nanoparticles

To improve electromagnetic (EM) shielding and especially absorption of carbon fibre reinforced polymer-matrix composites for aircraft applications in high frequencies, the inclusion of metallic nanoparticles of iron, cobalt, nickel and iron oxide as a filler with low volume fraction is analyzed as well as the influence of different particle sizes. It is found that iron nanoparticles of 50 nm are able to improve total shielding effectiveness of a carbon fibre/polymer nanocomposite up to 15 dB in the considered 8.2-12.4 GHz ranging band. At the same time EM shielding behaviour is superiorly constant and the absorption part of shielding is increased. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.