Electromagnetic shielding efficiency of nonwoven insulation panels designed with recycled textiles and copper wires

Insulation applications of nonwovens has become increasingly important in the construction and automotive industries since the late 1990s. Besides, recycling and reusing fibrous waste becomes one of the most important raw materials of nonwovens to promote effective use of resources recently. On the other hand, metals are now being increasingly replaced by thermoplastics for housing commercial equipment, due to flexibility, light weight, and low cost for electromagnetic shielding purposes. In this study, we design nonwoven insulation panels containing copper wires with different intensity and length to provide electromagnetic wave protection by using recycled textiles. The method is simple, the material is cheaper, and more importantly, the whole material can be produced by using only waste materials. The electromagnetic shielding characteristics of the panels were measured and discussed. The experimental results indicated that the variation in wire length and amount affects the electromagnetic (EM) shielding property. With this method, the products with electromagnetic shielding effect in certain areas can be developed. In particular, there is a big potential for electromagnetic shielding applications in wide bandwidth, such as 1125–2925 MHz.