Leveraging BaFe12O19/PANI Nanocomposite Incorporated Cotton Fabric as an Effective EMI Shielding Flexible Material for X-band Frequency

This study focuses on addressing the growing concern of electromagnetic interference (EMI) pollution caused by the widespread use of electronic devices. An effective shielding material using barium hexaferrite nanoparticles {BaFe12O19 (BaM) NHFs} and its nanocomposite (NC) with polyaniline (PANI) applied to cotton fabric was developed. The BaM NHFs and BaM/PANI NCs were synthesized by using modified sol-gel and self-assembly coating methods. The hexagonal structure of BaM NHFs was confirmed through powder X-ray diffraction (pXRD) analysis. High-resolution electron microscopy was utilized to study the morphology of BaM/PANI NCs. The ferromagnetic properties of the prepared samples were investigated by using alternating gradient magnetometry. The BaM NHFs and BaM/PANI NCs were treated with the cotton fabric using the pad-dry-cure method with low loading percentages of 0.1 and 1% add-on to the fabric's weight. The treated fabrics were then evaluated for their EMI shielding behavior. Remarkably, the fabric treated with BaM/PANI NCs demonstrated excellent EMI shielding effectiveness in the X-band frequency region, even at a lower concentration of 1% compared with pure PANI and BaM NHFs. This suggests that further increasing the loading percentage of BaM/PANI NCs on cotton fabric could significantly enhance the shielding performance for various important applications.