A cost-effective strategy to design and fabricate absorption dominant flexible multilayer laminates by rationally tailoring their layers†

Owing to the ever-increasing complexity of the electromagnetic environment, the market for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding is expanding at a rapid rate. Recently, there has been a focus on developing new methods that can be used to fine-tune and forecast the shielding qualities of buildings without using up all of the raw materials. Additionally, methods that are economical and need a short duration of time for optimization have been prioritized. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate an efficient and accurate method for predicting the EMI shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) of materials. This is accomplished by simulating the performance of composites that contain alternate layers of conducting and magnetic materials within a virtual waveguide measurement environment. Using CST Studio Suite software, the EMI shielding effectiveness of multilayered structures is simulated in the X-band range. The strategic arrangement of electromagnetic (EM) energy-trapping layers within impedance-matching layers in the multilayered structures is found to significantly contribute to the enhancement of absorption-dominated EMI shielding, as demonstrated through a simulation carried out by varying the order and number of the conducting and magnetic layers. Among the multilayered structures, the PC/PM/PC (PVDF-CNF/PVDF-MWCNTs/PVDF-CNF) systems showed the best shielding efficiency, with a value of 96.47 dB. Poly(vinylidene fluoride)-based composites comprising low-cost MWCNTs are used to construct the multilayered structures for testing purposes. After completing this research, we came up with the hypothesis that it is not required to use materials that have a high manufacturing cost and need laborious fabrication processes in order to create extremely effective shielding materials.