Fabrication of Light Weight Mechanically Robust Short Carbon Fiber/Ethylene Methyl Acrylate Polymeric Nanocomposite for Effective Electromagnetic Interference Shielding

Short carbon fiber (SCF) filled ethylene methyl acrylate (EMA) nanocomposites of excellent mechanical strength and flexibility has been fabricated by using a facile and commercially feasible melt blending method to evaluate its electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) as well as the mechanical and thermal properties of the composites. Improved dispersion offers three dimensional interconnected networks within polymeric matrix to achieve lower percolation threshold of 3.10 wt%. Morphological analysis has been carried out by using field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) to reveal good dispersion of SCFs in EMA matrix even at a higher loading of 10 wt%. The influence of aspect ratio with increasing filler concentration on mechanical strength and electrical properties of composites has been explained by optical microscopic images. Experimental results demonstrate that an improved tensile strength of 37% in comparison with neat EMA and an increasing thermal stability along with excellent EMI SE of -23.9 dB has been achieved at 10 wt% SCF loading, which makes it a potentially flexible, light weight, mechanically robust, efficient EMI shielding material for commercial applications.