The influence of carbon fiber diameter and content on the dielectric properties of wet-laid nonwoven fabric

A new kind of wet-laid nonwoven fabric, which has great potential to be applied as a wave absorbing material, has been prepared using paper making methods, using blends of short carbon fibers (CFs) and aramid fibers. The dielectric properties and the electromagnetic wave absorbing performance of the new wet-laid nonwoven fabric have been tested at a frequency of 10 GHz to study the influence of the diameter along with the CFs. It was found that the composites with finer CFs tend to have lesser resistance when set at the same CF content. The microwave-absorbing performances of the composites were observed by complex permittivity and reflection loss. These results indicate that the wet-laid nonwoven fabrics can be used as an effective, lightweight, microwave-absorbing material, which can have a highly flexible dielectric property.