Light-weight carbon fiber/silver-coated hollow glass spheres/epoxy composites as highly effective electromagnetic interference shielding material

Abstract

Highly effective electromagnetic interference shielding materials with light-weight feature are urgently demanded for releasing electromagnetic pollution. In this study, the hollow glass spheres were coated with silver particles to produce electrically conductive microspheres. The Carbon fiber/silver-coated hollow glass spheres (Ag@HGMs)/epoxy composites were manufactured by composites liquid molding process. The electromagnetic interference shielding properties of the composites were investigated in the X-band (8.2–12.4 GHz) range. The Ag@HGMs play a role in filling up the vacancy of the conductive network of carbon fibers in the composites, which not only form new conductive pathways but also act as bridges to connect CFs and provide additional channels for the electron transfer within the composites thus improving the electrical conductivity. The total shielding effectiveness (SET) increases with increasing Ag@HGMs loadings and the maximum SET is high as 88.1 dB. The increased SET dominated by absorption loss SEA is attributed to the high conductivity and multilayer construction of carbon fiber veil. The maximum specific SE of the carbon fiber/Ag@HGMs/epoxy composites can achieve 128.8 dB cm3/g, simultaneously the tensile strength and modulus can reach 95.6 MPa and 2.71 GPa, which provides a facile and promising strategy for designing and developing light-weight and high performance electromagnetic interference shielding materials.

Understanding the Effect of Interfacial Interphase on the Elastic Response of Hollow Glass Microsphere Reinforced Microcomposites

“…Although this body of research reveals the dependence of mechanical and physical behavior thermosetting composites reinforced with fillers, the use of the hollow glass microspheres (HGMSs) as lightweight high stiff reinforcements has been rarely reported in respect of the elastic response of polyesterbased composites filled with HGMS as the reinforcement [16]. In one study, Chen et al [17] reported the use of HGMSs coated with silver particle aiming at the fabrication of electrically conductive microspheres to be employed as one of the reinforcement phase in epoxybased liquid molded composites. The composites exhibited electromagnetic interference shielding properties whilst the HGMSs acted as materials to fill up the vacancies generated by the network of carbon fibers.…”