Enhancement of electromagnetic interference shielding and heat-resistance properties of silver-coated carbonyl iron powders composite material

To elevate the electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding and heat-resistance properties of carbonyl iron powders (CIPs), we synthesized the silver (Ag) capsulated on CIPs by a simple electroless plating process with different process conditions. Samples are characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), thermal gravimetric analyses (TGA) and vector network analyzer (VNA), respectively. The TG result shows that the existence of Ag can prevent CIPs from being oxidized at high temperature. The Ag coated CIPs composite materials possess excellent EMI shielding performance in X-band (8.2 GHz–12.4 GHz), which originates from the synergistic effect of electricity and magnetism. Additionally, the total EMI shielding effectiveness (SET) of the composite with the optimum experiment condition can exceed ~33 dB in the whole X-band, which has a high potential for use as EMI material.