Nickel nanoparticles embedded in carbon foam for improving electromagnetic shielding effectiveness

Abstract

To improve electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of light weight carbon foam (CF), magnetic nanoparticles were embedded in it during processing. The CF was developed from the coal tar pitch and mixture of coal tar pitch-Nickel (Ni) nanoparticles by sacrificial template technique and heat treated to up 1,000 °C. To ascertain the effect of Ni nanoparticles embedded in CF, it was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, vector network analyzer and vibration sample magnetometer. It is observed that Ni nanoparticles embedded in the carbon material play an important role for improving the structure and electrical conductivity of CF-Ni by catalytic carbonization. The structural investigation suggests that the Ni nanoparticles embedded in the carbon material in bulk as well on the surface of CF. The CF demonstrates excellent shielding response in the frequency range 8.2–12.4 GHz in which total shielding effectiveness (SE) dominated by absorption losses. The total SE is −25 and −61 dB of CF and CF-Ni, it is governed by absorption losses −48.5 dB in CF-Ni. This increase is due to the increase in dielectric and magnetic losses of ferromagnetic Ni nanoparticles with high surface area. Thus, light weight CF embedded with small amount of magnetic nanoparticles can be useful material for stealth technology.