Flexible cellulose fibre/silver fabric for highly efficient and broadband EMI shielding via metal-organic decomposition approach

Conductive fabrics have gained significant interest due to their flexibility and exceptional shielding effectiveness (SE) in electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding for electronic equipment. However, conventional preparation methods such as electroless plating and electroplating are plagued by heavy pollution and a complicated preparation process. In this work, we develop a simple and non-polluting preparation method that involves dip-coating and annealing a metal-organic decomposition (MOD) solution onto cellulose fibre (CF) subtrate. The CF contains numerous polar groups (-OH) that can directly adsorb silver (Ag) complex from the MOD onto the surface of the CF, and then through annealing to form a conductive path. As a result, the CF/Ag conductive fabric, with a conductive network formed Ag particles, exhibits an outstanding electrical conductivity of 2830 S/m. Moreover, the CF/Ag fabric with a thickness of similar to 200 mu m exhibits a remarkably high average EMI SE over 65 dB across the broad frequency of 8.2 - 40 GHz. Meanwhile, the flexible CF/Ag fabric possesses excellent bendability with tensile strength and elongation at break exceeding 9 MPa and 3 %, respectively. Moreover, the shielding performance of CF/Ag fabric shows excellent stability at the bending test. This innovative approach with the advantages of easy to process and non-polluting for fabricating flexible and broadband conductive fabrics provides a new strategy in the EMI shielding field.