Fabrication of highly conducting Pva/Cnt composite films

The recent increase in the usage of electronic devices for high frequency applications has led to immense interest in the area of electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. These devices are used for a wide verity of applications ranging from commercial and consumer sectors to military applications. However, this has now led to noise pollution called electromagnetic interference which can malfunction the device in which they are generated and also is dangerous to humans. Scientist have already developed electromagnetic interference shielding technology, which however is far from perfect. Polymer composites which are made conductive by the addition of fillers like carbon nanostructures and metal nanoparticles are reported to give good EMI shielding. A shielding efficiency of 30 dB, corresponding to 99.9% attenuation can be assumed to be a decent EMI shielding level. The key towards realizing an efficient EMI shielding composite is by enhancing significantly, its electrical conductivity. Although there are many reports elaborating the fabrication of composite materials with good EMI shielding, the correlation between shielding properties and the structure of the composite remains ambiguous, which has hindered significant advancements in this area till now. In this work we have fabricated highly conducting PVA-CNT polymer nanocomposite films via simple solution mixing method. The structure of the composites have been probed with FE-SEM and FTIR spectroscopy. The enhancement in conductivity has been explained by correlating electrical and structural properties of the films. (author)