Porous polyamide 6/carbon black composite as an effective electromagnetic interference shield

Abstract Porous conductive polymer composites (CPCs) with functional additives are potential lightweight electromagnetic interference (EMI) materials. In this study, porous polyamide 6/carbon black (PA6/CB) composite was fabricated by a facile solution foaming strategy. When the content of CB was up to 20 wt%, a conductive network of CB was formed. The EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) of the prepared composites increased with CB fraction in the porous CPCs. When the content of CB reached 50 wt%, the values of SE reached 33.7–37.3 dB in the X band. This composite showed an EMI special SE of 221.97 dB cm 3 g −1 . The average absorptivity ( A ) coefficients of EMI reached 82.4% when the CB fraction was increased to 30 wt%. CPCs having a high fraction of inorganic CB showed an advantage in the reduction of non‐biodegradable plastics usage. The porous PA6/CB composite is a promising EMI material with an absorption‐dominated mechanism in the engineering field. © 2021 Society of Industrial Chemistry.