Flexible, electrothermal-driven controllable carbon fiber/poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) shape memory composites for electromagnetic shielding

Abstract Carbon fiber felt (CFF) has a broad range of applications in electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding because it is a multi-functional rigid material with a conductive property. In the present work, the flexible and intelligent CFF/poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) (EVA) EMI shielding composites with electrothermal-driven shape memory performance was prepared by hot-pressing method, which provide precise and convenient control-method for driving EMI shielding conversion. As revealed, the CFF/EVA composites can achieve an EMI shielding effect of 45.6 dB in X-band and maintain a ca. 99% shape memory recovery ratio. Moreover, the composites can quickly return to the original shape at low voltage, and realize accurate and fast remote emergency control EMI shielding. The excellent flexible, intelligent and controllable high-performance EMI shielding effect of the CFF/EVA composites will play a key role in the frontier fields of flexible electronic equipment, actuators, chip protection, and information security.