Study on finishing and electromagnetic properties of electromagnetic shielding fabric based on multilayer Ti3C2Tx medium

Electromagnetic shielding (EMS) fabrics have the bottlenecks of the difficulty to improve the shielding effectiveness (SE) and the lacking of absorbing properties. Finishing fabrics with Ti3C2Tx are expected to be a fast and effective way to solve these problems. In this paper, two kinds of main EMS fabrics of the stainless steel blending and copper–nickel coating are selected. Ti3AlC2 is etched using hydrochloric acid and lithium fluoride in situ to generate hydrofluoric acid to prepare multilayer Ti3C2Tx. The finishing experiments of the fabric with Ti3C2Tx impregnation are designed. The influence of multilayer Ti3C2Tx on the shielding and absorbing properties of the EMS fabric are studied. The results show that the multilayer Ti3C2Tx can be prepared and dispersed as the treatment by the proposed method. For the blended fabric, the Ti3C2Tx micro-media are absorbed or are infiltrated into the fibers in most cases. For the coated fabric, the Ti3C2Tx micro-media are on the surface of the fabric. The SE of the blended fabric in a frequency range of 6.57–18 GHz and the copper plated nickel fabric in a frequency range of 6.57–16 GHz are enhanced. At the same time, the absorbing performances of the two types of fabrics in a high frequency band above 11.97 GHz are improved. This paper can provide a new efficient and low-cost method to improve the performance of the EMS fabric and provide a reference for the design, production and evaluation of new absorbing EMS fabrics.