Fabrication of ZnO/Carbon Foam Composites and their Electromagnetic Shielding Properties

Author of the article:SHAO Yiwei, LIU Heguang

Author's Workplace：School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi'an University of Technology, Xi'an 710048, China

Key Words：electromagnetic shielding; ZnO nanoparticles; carbon foam; composite

Abstract：To improve the electromagnetic shielding performance of pristine carbon foam, a ZnO/carbon foam composite was constructed using ZnO nanoparticles as reinforcement in this paper. The influence of the introduced ZnO nanoparticles on the electromagnetic shielding performance was comprehensively studied. The results indicate that the total shielding effectiveness of the ZnO/carbon foam composite can reach 24 dB, which is obviously higher than that of the pristine carbon foam. This is attributed to the addition of ZnO nanoparticles, which enhance the dielectric loss of the pristine carbon foam. Moreover, the attenuation constant and the skin depth of the composite are also investigated. It is found that the composite delivers a higher attenuation constant and a lower skin depth.