Electromagnetic characterization and shielding effectiveness of concrete composite reinforced with carbon nanotubes in the mobile phones frequency band

Highlights: • The frequency band 0.75–1.12 GHz is exploited in mobile phone radio access network. • A lot of nanomaterial is needed for the measurement and no literature is available. • The manufacturing procedure is usually used for preparation of concrete composite. • High EM absorbing walls could be used to mitigate the human exposure to EM fields. • A shielding effectiveness of 50 dB is obtained for a 15 cm thick wall–3 wt% of CNT. - Abstract: The electromagnetic properties of carbon nanotube powder reinforced concretes are numerically and experimentally characterized. This typology of composite material is built by following the simple procedure usually adopted for the on-site concrete production. The dielectric parameters are investigated by means of waveguide measurements in the frequency band 0.75–1.12 GHz that is currently exploited in mobile phone radio access networks. The obtained results are used to compute the electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of large wall-shaped concrete structures. A shielding effectiveness up to 50 dB is obtained for a 15 cm thick wall when the carbon nanotube inclusion is raised up to 3 wt%