Poly(arylene ether nitrile) composite foams with magnetically and electrically separated structures for frequency-selective electromagnetic interference shielding

With the rapid development of communication technology and modern intelligent electronic systems, the demand for frequency-selective electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials has grown. In this work, poly(arylene ether nitrile) (PEN) composite foams with separated magnetic and conductive layers were prepared via delayed non-solvent induced phase separation, where the distribution of magnetic and conductive layers was designed to construct double-layer asymmetric structures and sandwich structures. Benefiting from destructive interference between electromagnetic waves (EMWs) in the magnetically and electrically separated porous structures, the double-layer asymmetric composites (M−C) exhibited outstanding absorption-dominated EMI shielding performance with favorable frequency selectivity, which did not occur in conventional double-layer composites. Specifically, M−C achieved a maximum shielding efficiency (SE) of 49.3 dB and a maximum average absorption ratio (Ar) of 93.9 %. Meanwhile, increasing the thickness of the magnetic layer of M−C can lower the characteristic frequency (fc) of the shielding peak and enhance average SE and average Ar. Moreover, M−C could show higher fc, average Ar, and average adsorption coefficient in the X-band when the incident EMWs first met with the magnetic layer, which was unavailable in frequency-selective PEN-based sandwich-structured composites. This effort offers a novel, flexible design to fabricate absorption-dominated EMI shielding materials with frequency selectivity.